Liberal judges remind voters what they don't like about Democrats

Stuart Taylor:

How would soon-to-be-President Obama like it if the courts were to order the Navy -- his Navy -- to cripple its training in Southern California coastal waters in the use of sonar to detect enemy submarines, and thereby perhaps endanger the Pacific Fleet?

That's what four Democratic-appointed federal judges in California and two liberal Supreme Court justices voted to do in a recent case, to avoid any possibility of harming marine mammals, not one of which has suffered a documented injury in 40 years of sonar training off the California coast.

And that's the sort of thing that liberal groups want done by the judges that President-elect Obama will soon be appointing.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court overturned on November 12, in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the major restrictions on sonar training that the four lower-court judges had ordered. The majority held that with the nation embroiled in two wars, "the Navy's interest in effective, realistic training of its sailors" far outweighed the speculative harm that the training might do to the plaintiffs' interest in marine mammals.

"For the plaintiffs, the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals that they study and observe," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for himself and the four other more-conservative justices. "In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained antisubmarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet."

Noting that "antisubmarine warfare is currently the Pacific Fleet's top war-fighting priority," Roberts explained in detail why the training exercises are essential for effective use by Navy strike groups of "mid-frequency active sonar." This difficult-to-master technology is the only effective means of detecting the more than 300 nearly silent diesel-electric submarines in the hands of potential enemies, including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

This type of sonar bounces loud noises off submarine hulls. It can seriously harm beaked whales and some other marine mammals, although no such injury has been documented off Southern California. The Navy has made extensive efforts to mitigate any possible effects by looking out for marine mammals and reducing or shutting off active sonar transmissions when they come close. But the Navy said that two requirements imposed by the lower courts -- shutting down the sonar when a marine mammal is spotted within 2,200 yards and greatly reducing the volume in some conditions -- would be crippling.

Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice John Paul Stevens, concurred separately, except on a technical point. Breyer's opinion demonstrated in detail that the Clinton-appointed District judge (Florence-Marie Cooper) and Carter-appointed Appeals Court judges (Betty Fletcher, Dorothy Nelson, and Stephen Reinhardt) had offered no good reason "why we should reject the Navy's assertions that it cannot effectively conduct its training exercises" under the lower courts' order.

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He gives several more examples of liberal judicial excesses.

Putting the lives of critters ahead of the lives of the sailors is egregious enough, but we also need to remember that the lives of millions of Americans depend on those sailors being successful in defending us against enemies. The liberal position in this case was not only without merit it was dangerous to all of us.