Destroy them all!

Republican Jesus will sort them out

Hugh Hewitt is a second- or third-string radio ranter who may be best known in the on-line community for writing an entire book to try to force the digital revolution into the narrow mold of his right-wing perspective. I never bother to listen to him.

Today, however, was an exception. After the California Supreme Court handed down its decision on same-sex marriages this morning, I could not resist scanning the AM radio dial for the sweet sound of exploding right-wing heads. Hugh Hewitt was particularly obliging.

Hugh was simply furious and was stamping his little feet in rage for the entire duration of his program. No, no; I was not insane enough to listen to the whole thing. Rather, I dipped into his program a few times over the course of the afternoon and it was all he was ever talking about. I even took a couple of hours off to go see Iron Man (great fun; I recommend it) and found Hewitt still screaming when I turned on the car radio again. I wonder if he even drew another breath.

He kept referring to our state's justices as having “seized power.” It was, he said, a stark judicial coup. Amusingly enough, the California Supreme Court is stacked with Republican appointees. Six out of the seven justices owe their position to GOP governors. The seventh, who served as the tie-breaker on today's decision, is the lone Democrat. The ruling in favor of same-sex marriages was crafted by conservative appointees. The majority decision of written by Chief Justice Ronald George.

Hewitt claimed to have read the entirety of In re Marriage Cases and mocked the court for having devoted so many pages to “side issues” such as the scope of Proposition 22. (One might be forgiven, I would think, for imagining that the anti-gay-marriage initiative enacted by California voters would be a relevant issue for the supreme court to consider.) Hugh insisted it was all window-dressing to disguise the justices' power grab. Clever of them! Hewitt quoted a big chunk of Justice Baxter's dissent, although in more heated tones than Baxter probably intended.

Here's the really great thing: First Hewitt demanded that California voters recall the four “activist” judges. Then someone apparently informed him that none of the four evil-doers were on the ballot this year. Then Hewitt fulminated that Californians should quickly enact a constitutional initiative measure to allow the “coup leaders” to be removed from office and banned for life from public service. (Hugh was just a little intemperate.) No doubt he will soon be selling pikes and staves on his website for when he leads the outraged citizenry against the court.

Finally, as I dropped in on him for the last time to hear a few minutes from near the end of the show, Hewitt declared that the problem was too big to allow for a targeted response. (Hugh's listeners are, in his apparent opinion, too stupid to make distinctions.) It was necessary, he concluded, to recall all judges. Just vote “no” on all judicial confirmations. Yes, even Justice Baxter. I'm not imagining that: Hewitt mentioned him by name as a regrettable but necessary casualty of the nuclear anti-judge option. That's right: vote “no” on Baxter, the justice whose dissent Hewitt had praised to the skies. Kill them all and let God sort them out!

Ever see the John Cleese skit in which he portrays a broadcaster so overcome by his hatred of commies that he goes into a writhing fit? It was like that. I had better things to do than listen to rest of Hewitt's program, so I didn't learn whether the guys with the straitjacket and tranquilizer darts finally showed up. It would have been the perfect ending.

Note: I wrote most of this post originally as a comment on Pharyngula. After writing it, I could not resist reworking it into a blog post. Lucky you, dear readers.