Specter on the Judiciary
By Mark R. Levin

Arlen Specter is a menace. And he seems to believe that judges, appointed for life and accountable to no one, should have the final say over a key presidential power during war, i.e., tracking the enemy and stopping him from attacking us.

According to AP, under the Specter plan:

The attorney general would have to get approval from a secretive intelligence court every 45 days to preserve the Bush administration’s controversial surveillance program, according to a draft bill from the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman. The proposal being developed by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., would require the Justice Department to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to determine whether the program is constitutional. The court also would have to certify the government is collecting information when there is probable cause to believe the program “will intercept communications of the foreign power or agent of a foreign power.”

More here. And there are enough Republican senators who buy into the notion of judicial supremacy that his bill, or one like it, might well pass. If so, this would be the time for the president to exercise his first veto. President Bush must protect the executive branch from encroachment by Congress and the judiciary, particularly his commander-in-chief powers. At best, Specter is a, well, weird gadfly (among four or five such Republican species in the Senate).

The idea that judges and their law clerks have the skills, experience, or responsibility to make these decisions is absurd. Critics of the president’s NSA program wonder what limits are placed on a president who doesn’t seek judicial review. Three come to mind: 1. Congress’s ability to deny the program funding. 2. Congress’s impeachment power. 3. Constitutional limits on a president’s tenure.

During the Roberts and Alito hearings, Specter said many confusing and contradictory things. But one complaint he repeatedly voiced was the judiciary’s disrespect for congressional action. Yet, he leads the charge to empower the judiciary at the expense of the executive branch, in violation of the separation of powers doctrine, explicit constitutional language granting the president commander-in-chief authority, and basic common sense.