Know your enemy.

The threat of theocracy seems to dominate a lot of discussion of the attack DeLay and his destructionist minions have launched on the courts in the wake of the Schiavo case, but a much broader reach than that motivates the forces who are aligned with a new generation of radicals.

A short list, from U of Chicago professor Cass Sunstein, includes fundamental changes to American personal and commercial life...

"...many decisions of the Federal Communications Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and possibly the National Labor Relations Board would be unconstitutional. It would mean that the Social Security Act would not only be under political but also constitutional stress. Many of the Constitution in Exile people think there can't be independent regulatory commissions, so the Security and Exchange Commission and maybe even the Federal Reserve would be in trouble. Some applications of the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act would be struck down as beyond Congress's commerce power."

They know they could never accomplish such a radical program legislatively, so they're turning the language inside out again. After 50 years of right wing rants about judicial activism, the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Greve is explicit. "Judicial activism will have to be deployed."

The quotations are from Jeffrey Rosen's piece in the NY Times Magazineon the 'Constitution In Exile' movement one of the threads, along with the theocratic fundamentalists and property rights extremists, that make up the coalition against the Constitution, or at least the last 70 or so years of Constitutional law.

It's a genuine must read. It's filled with the rhetoric of the radicals, and provides a number of reference points to watch for in the fight over the Bush re-nomination of his most extreme failed appointments. Sounds like there will be plenty to look for...

Greve expressed cautious optimism that his views will get a sympathetic hearing from some of the federal appellate judges renominated this year by the president....Greve and his colleague Christopher DeMuth, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, say they are heartened by the judges reportedly on Bush's short list, many of whom they consider broadly sympathetic to their views. "I think the president and his top staff have shown really good taste in their court of appeals nominations," DeMuth told me during a visit to the institute, "and when the Supreme Court opening comes up, they will be very strongly inclined to nominate people from our side."

There's good reason to be afraid, but that's all the more reason to be informed.