When The Bubble Bursts

In a March 10, 2006 discussion, Mike Allen, the White House correspondent of Time magazine, and Keith Olbermann of Countdown, which is an hour-long nightly newscast on MSNBC, remarked on Sandra Day O'Connor's recent speech at Georgetown University.

O'Connor's speech, also recorded by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, warned that attacks on the judiciary by Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms.

It should be noted here, before folks jump to the conclusion that this is a Democrat's attack posturing for the upcoming elections, that former Justice O'Connor is a Republican. A highly respected Republican.

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Supreme Court Justice who retired last month after 24 years of service to our country, said: "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies."

For those of us who missed coverage of the Georgetown University speech, Allen and Olbermann clue us in to the alarming focus of one of O'Connor's main points: that we are seeing the beginnings of a dictatorship here in America.

A couple of months ago, I expressed this very concern. And was ballyhooed by local chums as being paranoiac. They said my fears, based on the observation that many of the mechanisms of totalitarian rule had been set into operation in our country during the last six years, were groundless. That a dictatorship couldn't happen here in the U.S.

Yet, when you hear a Supreme Court Justice, who has only been off the bench for one month, use the word D-I-C-T-A-T-O-R-ship twice in the same speech, referring to what is happening here in America, it gives pause to the question: When is the proper time to panic? Before or after totalitarian rule is an established fact?
When The Bubble Bursts © 2006 Chaeli Lee Sullivan