Tannishblog

You know what’s going to pound in the last nail into the middle class coffin? The high cost of security personnel.

What can you possible think of that tells the world “I’ve arrived” more emphatically than your own cadre of bodyguards? Presidents have some, Pop Stars have some, and even Federal District Court judges are among those who feel the need to join the top echelon of arrivers. Anyone can step out of a limousine these days, it’s so proletariat! But when the stretcher is as long as a city bus, and you and a scrimmage of charcoal big-and-tall suits stream out into the curb - you’re there, baby!

In Chicago, the comeuppance of the Federal Judges came when Bart A. Ross killed members of the family of Judge Joan K. Lefkow. Now, judicial employees can rightfully say that they have entered the realm of the popular, vulnerable visible class. The NY Times has a bit about her plea to the Senate Judiciary Committee (talk about a den of wolves):

Judge Lefkow, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the need to increase security for court employees, was accompanied by her four daughters, her husband’s two sisters and a niece. She called on the panel to “publicly and persistently repudiate gratuitous attacks on the judiciary.”

“We need your help in tempering the tone on the debates that concern the independence of the judiciary,” Judge Lefkow said. “I have come to know scores of judges during my 22 years as a magistrate judge, bankruptcy judge and district judge. Whether a liberal or conservative, I have never encountered a judge in the federal judiciary who can remotely be described as posing a threat as Mr. (Pat) Robertson said, ‘probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.’ ”

Mr. Robertson had criticized the federal courts during a recent appearance on the ABC program “This Week,” saying, “They’re destroying the fabric that holds our nation together.” He continued: “Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that’s held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.”

Without citing lawmakers by name, Judge Lefkow also referred in her testimony to the heated political battle that erupted this year related to Terri Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman who died after her feeding tube was removed at her husband’s request. Some conservatives portrayed her death as the result of an unaccountable judiciary, and Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, threatened retribution against the judges who refused to intercede in the case.

“The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,” Mr. DeLay said at the time.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, also said last month that some courthouse violence might be explained - without justification - by anger about judges who “are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public.”

Judge Lefkow said she had received more than 1,000 letters of condolence since her husband and mother were killed, including about 200 from other judges who “know in their own hearts that ‘this could have been me.’ ” She has been under federal protection since the killings.

We have “all the little people” to thank for this: the deranged, depressed lunatics like Bart A. Ross, the self-inflated Neo-Nazi egotists, like Matthew Hale, the renegade Texan polutoccrats (we all know who they are), the Neo-vogue, Christian hate group figureheads. These are dangerous times. With the nation’s future in such disarray (wars, deficits, fillibusters, oh,my!), the masses are reaching critical mass, and the slightest thing may likely set them off. Anyone with a modicum of notoriety needs protection these days, and carrying a piece is just not enough. Having a few suits about carrying pieces? Priceless.