SCOTUS Going to the dogs...er, Whales

By Rick Moran

The Supreme Court of the United States of America has seen its share of history over the last 218 years of its existence. It has decided the most fundamental questions of human liberty and dignity as well as laying out a legal roadmap for all of our other courts to follow.

Now this august body has agreed to decide a case of monumental importance - to whales:

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide if the Navy is doing enough to protect whales from the effects of its sonar testing.

Environmentalists successfully sued the Pentagon over the practice in March, forcing major changes the Navy's annual offshore training exercises.

A federal judge ruled it was "constitutionally suspect" for President Bush to issue a national security exemption so no environmental impact assessment was carried out.

The Navy says the courts are protecting sea creatures rather than people. The Justice Department has asked the high court to revisit the federal appeals court ruling against the government.

The restrictions imposed by the court, said the Justice Department, could hamper military readiness in a time of war because sonar technology is used to detect increasingly sophisticated enemy submarines.

"In ordering additional mitigation to reduce the risk to marine mammals, the order shifts the risk to sailors and Marines," Navy spokesman Capt. Scott Gureck said in March.

This would be hysterically funny if not for the life and death nature of the issue. It is believed that sonar affects a whale's own biological sonar system - sometimes (very rarely) causing the animals to beach themselves and die.

It doesn't happen to every whale within earshot of the subs nor does it kill every whale affected.

But environmentalists thought they saw a great way to give themselves a twofer; not only save the whales but throw a monkey wrench into the evil American military.

What self respecting, wild eyed radical left wing nincompoop could resist that?

The question is why in the name of all that is good and holy is the Supreme Court taking this thing seriously enough to hear arguments? Are they bored? Maybe they're just suckers for a case that will generate headlines as this one has done.

Needless to say, if the environmentalists win, the American people lose. Given the court's recent track record, that sounds about how this thing is going to turn out in the end.