Right-wing politicians complaining about judicial activism are very selective about their targets:

Not since the 1960’s, when federal judges in the South were threatened by cross burnings and firebombs, have judges been so besieged. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, set off a furor when he said judges could be inviting physical attacks with controversial decisions. And last week the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, called for an investigation of the federal judges in the Terri Schiavo case, saying ominously: “We set up the courts. We can unset the courts.”

Conservatives claim that they are rising up against “activist judges,” who decide cases based on their personal beliefs rather than the law.

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The inconsistency of the conservative war on judges was apparent in the Terri Schiavo ordeal. Mr. DeLay, an outspoken critic of activist courts, does not want to investigate the federal trial judge and the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit for judicial activism, but for the opposite: for refusing to overturn the Florida state courts’ legal decisions, and Michael Schiavo’s decisions about his wife’s medical care.

The classic example of conservative inconsistency remains Bush v. Gore. Not only did the court’s conservative bloc trample on the Florida state courts and stop the vote counting - it declared its ruling would not be a precedent for future cases. How does Justice Scalia explain that decision? In a recent New Yorker profile, he is quoted as saying, with startling candor, that “the only issue was whether we should put an end to it, after three weeks of looking like a fool in the eyes of the world.” That, of course, isn’t a constitutional argument - it is an unapologetic defense of judicial activism.

George W. Bush is trying to dismantle the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Roman Catholic Church has selected a new pope who may try to dismantle the legacy of Pope John XXIII.

He criticised the introduction of the non-Latin Mass as a “tragic breach” and in the 1980s dubbed homosexuality an “intrinsic moral evil” and said rock music could be a “vehicle of anti-religion”.

In 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger was appointed Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) – an organisation once known as the Inquisition – and has since stamped his rigorous theological conservatism on the Church.

It is claimed that he saw his mission as defending Catholic teaching following liberal moves after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

He had public disagreements with moderate German Cardinal Walter Kaspe and has also been accused of prompting decrees from Rome barring Catholic priests from counselling pregnant teenagers about choices available to them.

Others claim he blocked German Catholics from sharing communion with Lutherans at a joint gathering in 2003.

Latin was not the language of Jesus, but of the Caesars. Pope John XXIII’s “tragic breach” was to reach out to ordinary people. While Karel Wojtyla (John Paul II) fought the Nazis occupying his native Poland during World War II, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) was a member of the Hitler Youth. Ah, progress!