John McCain may look like a cuddly great-uncle, but he does not have your best interest in heart:
Highlighting an issue he plans to use aggressively in the general election campaign, Sen. John McCain on Tuesday decried "the common and systematic abuse of our federal courts by the people we entrust with judicial power" and pledged to nominate judges similar to the ones President Bush has placed on the bench.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. "would serve as the model for my own nominees, if that responsibility falls to me," highlighting the gap between Republicans and Democrats on the question of who should sit on the Supreme Court. Both justices have established strong conservative records since Bush appointed them, and the appointment of one more conservative to the nation's highest court could tip the balance on issues such as abortion, discrimination, civil liberties and private property.
Are you one of those readers who loves sports metaphors? If so, McCain is proposing to have all the umpires decide for the other team. Property owners will win. There will be no justice for those who have been the victims of discrimination at work or at school. Civil liberties will only be about the right of religious people to act religious, nothing else. And corporations will win most everything.
This is one of the many issues at stake in the coming general elections: Whether the powerless and the poor have any legal recourse at all, whether there will be anything resembling justice in this country for the next few decades.