Their conduct fortifies the growing consensus among legal scholars, political scientists, and ordinary citizens that the five-member majority responsible for Bush v. Gore is out of control and even threatens the very continuation of our democratic experiment. We too respect and strongly support the power of the Supreme Court to hear and independently decide any judicial question before it, no matter how politically controversial. However, in our view it would be utterly irresponsible and dangerous for concerned citizens to tolerate quietly Supreme Court justices who willfully and cynically appropriate the powers of other branches of government by taking upon themselves the resolution of purely political questions, as these five justices did in Bush v. Gore . We wholeheartedly agree with New York University law professor Larry D. Kramer that failure to confront these five partisan, power-hungry justices would be horribly misguided and naive. This may be because liberals and moderates are inhibited by a false belief that the Supreme Court is a fragile institution that needs to be protected from public censure.
Many liberals now assume that criticizing the court plays into the conservatives' hands.
Precisely the opposite is true. Conservatives never hesitate to attack a court that does things they don't like. Just ask the justices of the Florida Supreme Court. Liberals never used to hesitate, either. By sitting on their hands now, critics merely encourage the court's conservative majority. . . .