Below is my column in the Hill on the leaking of the draft opinion on abortion from the Supreme Court. While lionizing the leaker, media and political figures have ratcheted up their rhetoric to “burn down the Court” or to pack it with reliable liberal votes. Because these pundits disagree with the constitutional interpretation, they are now suggesting that the entire institution is illegitimate.

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick wrote “we need to be focusing on the legitimacy of the court itself” while CNN’s chief political analyst Gloria Borger suggested that the Supreme Court Justices were “just a bunch of politicians in robes.” Historian Jon Meacham declared “If you had any reservations about the system’s capacity to deliver justice, they have just been affirmed.” Because the Court has adopted an opposing constitutional interpretation, we are once again deluged from calls ranging from packing the Court to burning it down. In this environment, the White House could not even muster enough courage to denounce protesters descending on the homes of justices to harass them. While the legitimacy of the Court is questioned, the targeting of justices and their families is not.

Here is the column:

Continue reading “The License to Leak: How Years of Attacks on the Court Created a “By Any Means” Mentality” →