As if big business had not profited enough during Bush's tenure, Bush had the audacity to nominate corporate lawyer Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Many criticisms were made about this nominee, and neither party was very pleased with her. The attacks generally fell along party lines and missed the point of why Supreme Court nominees should not be selected on a political basis. John Roberts, a conservative, was eventually confirmed to become the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Everyone loses when politicians choose to politicize our legal system. Most Americans support their politicians in nominating judges that have their political views, without realizing that by doing so, they are eliminating the power of the judicial branch to act as a check against either of the other branches. The tree of democracy is dependent on the vitality of its branches.
It is imperative that when making choices for Supreme Court and Federal Court judges, the process must favor apolitical candidates. A politically minded judge has a conflict of loyalty between the Constitution and the group whose political orientation he or she advocates. While everyone likes the idea of a judge being on his or her side, fairness requires that judges be on nobody's side, but on that of the Constitution.
One of the reasons we don't elect people to the Supreme Court is that they have a role in protecting the rights of minorities, which is not always a popular thing to do. To keep America from a tyranny of the majority, we will need our presidents to nominate objective people to the Supreme Court. Both parties need to play a role in promoting a healthy judiciary and depoliticizing the process of nominating judges.
Term limits appear to be the only institutional check on power currently functioning. Without them, we would one day have to tell George W. Bush something along the lines of what Fénelon told King Louis XIV:
“Sire: For forty years your ministers have violated all the ancient laws of the state so as to enhance your power. They have increased your revenue and your expenditures to the infinite and impoverished all of France for the sake of your luxury at court. They have made your name odious.
For twenty years they have made the French nation intolerable to its neighbors by bloody wars. We have no allies because we only wanted slaves. Meanwhile, your people are starving. Sedition is spreading and you are reduced to either letting it spread unpunished or resorting to massacring the people that you have driven to desperation.”
Today, you can't get around the fact that voters have the ultimate responsibility of putting good, intelligent people into positions of power. If the people elect losers, they will have to suffer the consequences of giving power to people incapable of serving the nation's best interests. If the voters elect partisan politicians whose concern for the public interest is not as important as serving their self-interest, then one must expect them to select partisan judges with the same agendas. The Separation of Powers is a good doctrine, but it cannot be a substitute for the voters in watching over their government.
