In the private sector, the capstone of your career is marked with a laudatory going-away party, perhaps a gold watch or other recognition of your years of service, and your retirement — it’s a clean break. The company goes on with its business and you go on with your life.
Unfortunately, some public figures have a difficult time moving on, and rather than retiring gracefully, they seek to hold on to the spotlight. They are able to capture media attention, not to reminisce on their storied careers, but rather because they are lobbing criticism at their successors.
Recently a former Supreme Court Justice has been making the rounds sniping at the Court on which he had previously served. Though Justice John Paul Stevens has retired from the Supreme Court, he cannot resist the urge to criticize the Court and the cases on which his views did not prevail.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently interviewed Stevens in Newsweek magazine. Stevens used this platform to criticize the Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC: “I think they made a serious mistake in the [Citizens United] campaign-finance case, in which they overruled the portion of an opinion you and I jointly authored [on the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law]. And I think you might share my view.”
Justice O’Connor provided a stark contrast to Stevens’ unwarranted attacks: “I notice that myself, and when I am asked about it, I often say, ‘Well, the court overruled part of what I wrote.’ And leave it there.”
Stevens also granted an interview to 60 Minutes. During this interview he accused the Court of legislating from the bench. He was asked “Where does the court make a mistake, in your view?” and flippantly replied “Well, which mistake do I want to emphasize?” These are not the words of a distinguished jurist, but rather the words of a petulant child who is angry he did not get his way.
In refusing to relinquish the limelight, Stevens is emulating former President Jimmy Carter, who always stands ready to interject himself into the national and international debate. Carter has frustrated our foreign policy objectives by taking positions contrary to that of the then-sitting president. One egregious example came in 1990, when he worked to undermine George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy regarding Iraq. Carter attempted to rally United Nations Security Council members to oppose American intervention in Iraq. This year Carter’s world tour of shadow-diplomacy has taken him to North Korea.
Slate.com, not exactly a bastion of conservatism, notes that:
Jimmy Carter’s post-presidential career has been characterized by a seemingly irresistible impulse to continue the presidency that American voters ended in 1980. Nowhere is this tendency more evident than in Carter’s free-lance diplomatic efforts, which have been governed by an anti-democratic attitude: When faced with a conflict between democracy and peace, choose peace. Carter relentlessly promotes democracy abroad by monitoring elections and by making well-argued defenses of democracy and human rights, such as the one he made this past week in Cuba. But sometimes his ardor for peace has come at the expense of democracy — democracy in America.
Carter’s antics are so extreme that a book was even authored attempting to chronicle them, “The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry.”
Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton by contrast have refrained from criticizing their successors. For two influential men who once led our great nation, it must be very difficult to remain quiet. With dignity they have remained on the sidelines, resurfacing to help in times of crisis, when called upon. For example, President Obama called upon Presidents Clinton and Bush in the wake of the tragic earthquake in Haiti. Both presidents answered that call and launched the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, a charitable fundraising effort to help the people of Haiti rebuild.
For a former president or a former Supreme Court justice to inject themselves into the affairs of their successors does damage to both the presidency and the Court. In his vitriolic dissent in Citizens United, Stevens admonished: “The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”
These unfortunate attacks on the Supreme Court by a former member do far more damage than any individual Supreme Court decision could possibly inflict.
Chris Berg is an attorney in Washington, DC. He has provided advice to organizations including the Republican National Lawyers Association and the Young Republican National Federation. He previously served as a political appointee to the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards. He currently serves as Assistant General Counsel to Citizens United.