"But defenders of the rule of law must be scrupulous about observing that rule’s limitations themselves, even in small matters, because the sole power of the rule of law is that it involves neutral principals that apply to both sides."
You still don't understand. It's too late. Trump was elected to blow it up. Like it or not, Michael Moore's description of the intent of the voters in the upper mid-west was correct. The rule of law is very important - no one on any of these recent threads has disagreed with that obvious point. The problem is that it's been violated with impunity by the leftist political class for most of these commenters' lifetimes.
As an example related to Obamacare, Ted Stevens got convicted of a crime he didn't commit when two leftist, career DOJ lawyers withheld exculpatory evidence - and got referred to the DC Bar by the judge (why don't you check out how often that happens - basically never, so yes it was extremely egregious). Stevens lost his re-election bid despite his conviction being overturned and that loss left the Republicans one seat shy of a filibuster of Obamacare. The example in this article wouldn't exist but for that abuse of the rule of law.
Scooter Libbey was prosecuted in an investigation where there was no crime and the prosecutor knew Armitage was Novak's source before the grand jury issued its first subpoena. Tom Delay was indicted by lefty, Travis County DA Ronnie Earle for allegedly violating a criminal statute that had not even gone into effect on the date of the act he was prosecuted for. When that charge failed to withstand scrutiny, he was convicted by a Travis County jury for money laundering when there was no underlying crime and the soft-for-hard money swap was perfectly legal. After years of appeals, the sham conviction was overturned. I have a democrat friend who worked for him so save any claim that Earle wasn't a true believing leftist, he was and he used the law to abuse a conservative for political reasons.
Then there were the sham John Doe prosecutions in Milwaukee county by the leftist DA whose public unionist wife convinced him to send SWAT teams into the homes of conservatives who worked for organizations that supported Scott Walker. I wonder how the author would feel if Trump sent a SWAT team into her house in the middle of the night for having the temerity to exercise her first amendment rights? Would she say "no harm, no foul let's pretend that we actually live in a country where the rule of law is respected?" I doubt it.
The only limit on my examples of leftist disregard for the rule of law is your attention span. The Obamacare fiasco has seriously harmed the middle class, and that was by design. The leftist unions managed to avoid the Cadillac Tax and have been saved from the ravages of the law. The middle class business owners and professionals who form the bulk of the individual, health insurance market predominantly vote Republican so they were targeted as the bullseye in this obvious effort to destroy the private insurance market.
The rule of law is important. That's why judge shopping, disrespect for the norm of a US District Court limiting any injunctive relief to the district in which the court is located, laughable claims of standing and admissions by plaintiffs' counsel that the travel ban EO would be legal if any other president had issued it are such a travesty. Unfortunately, the left has no respect for the rule of law and the author and the political establishment don't get it.
The political class, including the author, have either participated in, supported or excused banana republic level corruption for decades so appeals to political norms and rule of law are not only laughable, they are impotent.
The Russia Collusion meme was adopted by the left on the morning after the election. Comey is a joke. He abused the rule of law when he decided that the chosen candidate of the political class was above it. He did the same thing when he made the decision to give Sandy Berger a slap on the wrist for stuffing documents into his pants and destroying them at a construction site to hide Clinton administration malfeasance in its failures to deal with terrorism in the lead up to 9/11. The left was for firing Comey before it was against it, to borrow a phrase from one of the fathers of the Iranian nuclear bomb.
It is good that Trump is fighting the left with its own tactics. He didn't create the situation we are in, the political class and the MSM did. It's too late. Deal with the prosecutorial abuse meted out by the left first, and the surveillance (incidental my a$$) and the unmasking and the leaking and the leftist criminality without consequence, then let's talk about Trump.
