Ep. 163: The Media-Manufactured Mystique of the US Court System

<div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="dktq5" data-offset-key="d8cq6-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="d8cq6-0-0"><span data-offset-key="d8cq6-0-0">"John Roberts Passes Test: Politicization of Judicial Appointment is Disheartening," read a 2005 headline from Salisbury, Maryland’s</span> <span data-offset-key="d8cq6-0-1">Daily Times.</span> <span data-offset-key="d8cq6-0-2">"Ignore the attacks on Neil Gorsuch. He’s an intellectual giant — and a good man," Robert P. George pleaded in</span> <span data-offset-key= "d8cq6-0-3">The Washington Post</span> <span data-offset-key= "d8cq6-0-4">in 2017. Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination "is beyond politics," South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn told CBS's Face the Nation in 2022.</span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="d8cq6-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="dktq5" data-offset-key="4s0qa-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="4s0qa-0-0"><span data-offset-key="4s0qa-0-0">We hear the same refrains over and over about the US federal court system in general and the U.S. Supreme Court in particular.</span> <span data-offset-key="4s0qa-0-1">They’re independent judiciaries. They abide by the Constitution, the rule of law, the law of the land. They follow legal precedent. They’re bastions of integrity and impartiality.</span> <span data-offset-key="4s0qa-0-2">It’s reassuring to think of our courts as measured, fair, upholding democracy, and acting in the public’s interest.</span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="4s0qa-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="dktq5" data-offset-key="9b6ol-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offse