If Terri Schiavo finally perishes over the Easter weekend, the roar of fundamentalist rage will sound like the dawn of Armageddon. Televised preachers will blame her demise on the Democratic politicians who did almost nothing to oppose the political intervention in her case. Right-wing pundits will denounce the tyranny of “judicial activists,” an “elitist judicial oligarchy” or just plain “liberal judges.” Republican politicians will urge that she be avenged by sweeping away the constitutional protection of the filibuster, so that the president can pack the federal courts with extremists and theocrats. In a Weekly Standard essay titled “Runaway Judiciary,” Hugh...
