DeLay needs a civics lesson (Denver Post)

<snip> DeLay recently demanded that Congress seize the power to determine outcomes of specific cases in federal courts - never mind that his approach would defy the system of checks and balances at the heart of the constitution he has sworn to uphold.

Congress, at the urging of DeLay and others, interrupted its Easter recess to pass a bill that gave federal courts the authority to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who died Thursday 15 years after she suffered severe brain damage and 13 days after her feeding tube was removed. Opinion polls showed Americans were overwhelmingly repulsed by DeLay's naked manipulation of private anguish for political gain. Yet, however reprehensible, such pandering didn't of itself violate the U.S. Constitution because Article III, Section 2, states "...the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as the Congress shall make."

But after his side lost at every level of the state and federal judiciary, right up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court, DeLay threatened to punish the judges who had decided the case. "This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change," he wailed. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Exactly what punishment DeLay plans to mete out to the judges who did their duty under the Constitution isn't clear, though some of his fellow fulminators have laughingly suggested impeachment. Before such a spectacle occurs, however, we hope one of America's thousands of dedicated high-school civics teachers will take DeLay aside and explain to him what the words "the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact" means. <snip>

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~417~2794076,00.html

Rebelling against such tyranny - and foreseeing the day when a Tom DeLay might rise in America - the founding fathers wisely mandated: "no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed." (Article 1, Section 9.)

in 2004, despite being demonstrably a more centrist newspaper than the Rocky Mountain News, I had cancelled my subscription and written the editorial board, "why."

This was hard for me to do, because I want to support the DP and they had had a good track record of critical editorials on the administrative and not insignficant amounts of true journalism. This made their betrayal in the endorsement all the more paradoxical and prostituted, IMO. I also felt badly for my long term carrier, who depends on this route to make up for an ever decreasing pension/social security benefit.

So, I will find time this weekend to write letters to the editorial board on my appreciation for this editorial and similar good reporting in recent weeks and re-up my subscription. I hope that other Denverites (and apparently there were MANY, according to a circulation supervisor with whom I spoke)will similarly write and renew.