Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day OConnor no longer faces that obligation. Oh joy, here it comes...Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. "And they hurt my wittle feewings, too!" OConnors speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPRs legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.
Nina Totenberg: In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, translation: What she said! OConnor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. OConnor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, as she put it really, really angry. But, she continued, if we dont make them mad some of the time we probably arent doing our jobs as judges, and our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we wont be subject to answer for really stupid decisions like Kelo retaliation for our judicial acts. The nations founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said OConnor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions dont protect judicial independence, people do.
And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didnt name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said OConnor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said OConnor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said OConnor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts. How dare a citizen criticize the Supreme Court!
It gets worse, she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. It doesnt help, she said, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didnt name him, but it was Texas senator John Cornyn who made that statement, after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judges home. OConnor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with. Thereby demonstrating the sparkling intelligence she has displayed so often over the last few years...
I, said OConnor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, OConnor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. Remember, if it can happen in Zaire, it can happen here! 
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