Salon.com reported recently on the 150 letters to try and influence Judge Reggie B. Walton in the sentencing of Lewis Libby. It stated, “Also among the writers were many of the leading lights of the neoconservative movement, like Norman Podhoretz, editor at large of Commentary, and his wife, Midge Decter, a neoconservative author in her own right, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board. ”
Here are links to some of letters:
Now let’s contrast this attempted influence of a judge with Article 3 of our Consitution:
The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
What does that mean? Here is a summary from U. S. Courts:
The Founding Fathers of the nation considered an independent federal judiciary essential to ensure fairness and equal justice for all citizens of the United States. The Constitution they drafted promotes judicial independence in two major ways. First, federal judges are appointed for life, and they can be removed from office only through impeachment and conviction by Congress of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Second, the Constitution provides that the compensation of federal judges “shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office,” which means that neither the President nor Congress can reduce the salary of a federal judge. These two protections help an independent judiciary to decide cases free from popular passions and political influence.
When are the neocons and authoritarians going to stop trying to redact our Constitution? Here is how Jane Hamsher put it at firedoglake
Because they, like Libby, don’t believe he’s done anything wrong. The modern Republican party is built on the construct that all government is bad, and once in power they set about bringing into fruition this self-fulfilling prophecy with ruthless efficiency. They destroy everything they touch, but they are very good at what they are good at: PR, partisan politics and preserving their own power. From where they stand, from where Scooter stands, there is no culpability in anything done in the service of this, and Scooter was just doing his job. Read through the letters. The presumption of exreme moral rectitude even in the absence of any kind of moral compass whatsoever is gobsmacking.
Andy Hailey