From: "Rich Gauszka" 

I reckon Sandra Day O'Connor won't be invited to any Whitehouse luncheons
anytime soon :-)
 http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Retired_Supreme_Court_Justice_hits_attacks_0310.
htmlVia NPR. Rush transcript by RAW STORY. Listen to the audio report
here.Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day
O'Connor nolonger faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice
criticizedRepublicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge
theindependence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. O'Connor's
speechat Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPR's
legalaffairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.Nina Totenberg: In an
unusually forceful and forthright speech, O'Connorsaid that attacks on the
judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a directthreat to our
constitutional freedoms. O'Connor began by conceding thatcourts do have the
power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, asshe put it
"really, really angry." But, she continued, if we don't make
themmad some of the time we probably aren't doing our jobs as judges, and
oureffectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won't be
subjectto retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation's founders
wroterepeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to
protectindividual rights from the other branches of government those rights
andprivileges would amount to nothing. But, said O'Connor, as the
foundingfathers knew statutes and constitutions don't protect judicial
independence,people do........I, said O'Connor, am against judicial reforms
driven by nakedly partisanreasoning. Pointing to the experiences of
developing countries and formercommunist countries where interference with
an independent judiciary hasallowed dictatorship to flourish, O'Connor said
we must be ever-vigilantagainst those who would strongarm the judiciary
into adopting theirpreferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration
before a country fallsinto dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid
these ends by avoidingthese beginnings.

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