Glenn Greenwald has a great piece on John McCain's recent attack on the federal judiciary, and it just brought to mind something that people keep forgetting: For the majority of the past 30 years the Republicans have run this country, so any problems you see with the structure or makeup is their ficking fault!.
Seriously, check out this chart that shows who has run the show since 1980, 28 years ago:
McCain's claim that the federal judiciary is the dumbest of them all. Federal judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. As you can see on the chart above, these have overwhelmingly been in Republican control.
And it's even worse if you go back 40 years to 1968, with the Presidency being in Republican hands for 28 years or 70 percent of the time. Not coincidentally, the Supreme Court has been controlled by a majority of Republican nominated justices since 1968.
Further, the average tenure of a federal judge since 1970 is 25.5 years, meaning that there are very few judges left over from before 1970.
Using very weak association, if the Republicans controlled the White House for 70 percent of that time then they likely controlled 70 percent of the appointments, as well.
If McCain has a problem with the judiciary, then he has a problem with the way Republicans pick their judges. It's the Republicans who have screwed up the country, and not the Democrats, 'cause the Republicans have been the ones in control.
We need to keep this in mind as we get attacked for the problems we face in the country. Since 1980 we have only controlled the non-judicial branches of the federal government for two years, in 1993 and 1994. Other than that we have never been in control of the whole shebang.
Let's put the blame where it belongs: at the Republican's feet.