As I’m sure none of you has heard or seen any coverage of the results of Super Tuesday, in today’s column I was all ready to give you my keen and insightful analysis, because, you know, journalism. 

I was going to opine on how Colorado’s mail-in ballot is both blessing and curse, in that it makes voting (which is a good thing) easier for many people, especially those for whom a trip to the polls on election day is problematic. But our postal process is also a bit of a downer, as is any early voting system, in terms of allowing the electorate to respond to events that occur very near election day. 

This year we may have seen the implications of early voting, in that Bernie won the state, with about 36% of the vote. I confess I wonder if Bernie would have done that well had the voters all cast their ballots after the key dropouts of Klobuchar and Steyer? Hard to say. 

So, anyway, I was going to write about that, because where else are you going to get political coverage in Colorado? (Ed: oh, I dunno, maybe everywhere else in ColoradoPolitics.com? Sheesh!).

Instead, I shall again mount my rickety soapbox of idealism and bemoan the end of the independent judiciary, at least for a generation or so. This week we saw a clear indication, tragically, that the Supreme Court of the United States, and thereby the nation’s judicial branch (due to the appeals process) has become a fully political entity. I can only hope that this is a pendulum swing and will self-correct, but I worry deeply, given Mr. Trump’s appointments to that court, that we are in for at least a long period of partisan court decisions.

Recall that earlier this week, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer took to the steps of the Supreme Court to speak to an abortion rights rally. Schumer, not known for subtlety, crossed a line when he attacked SCOTUS members Kavanaugh and Gorsuch by name. Schumer shouldn’t have done it, and he walked back the remarks a bit, but he was wrong to do so.

In response, Chief Justice John Roberts condemned Schumer’s comments, and defended the co-equal branch of government that he leads. I don’t have any problem with Roberts’ comments nor his defense. He was spot on to rebuke Schumer. The problem though was what Roberts didn’t say earlier, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Courts are now fully partisan.

Over his time in office, President Trump has repeatedly attacked those members of the judicial branch he feels are not treating him fairly – which he seems to define as deferring to his every wish. You may well remember his attack on a “Mexican” judge. Last month, Trump even attacked the foreperson of the Roger Stone jury, and the judge in that trial. These attacks should be deeply troubling and merited a strong presidential rebuke from the chief justice, but, well, crickets.

Last month it got far worse, when the president attacked, by name, two member of Roberts’ own court, Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, demanding that they recuse themselves on, well, anything having to do with any and all matters involving Trump. Given Trump’s limited degree of subtlety, it’s not too hard to read between the lines and see that the intent was to intimidate two of the more liberal members of the court. Given the backbones of both jurists, the Trumpian intimidation effort will fail, but it should have sent chills.

And, more importantly, it should have merited a response from Roberts, defending his colleagues. But the attack on the liberals found the chief’s office silent, which sends a clear and troubling message, when coupled with the prompt (and appropriate) swatting down of Schumer. 

Simply put, Roberts could not abide an attack on his most conservative colleagues, but somehow found the attacks on the liberals to be palatable. I do not doubt Roberts’ wisdom or his acumen, and so it is hard to think that this selective outrage is not intended to send a message. 

I had hopes for the chief justice, given some of his votes that found him voting more as a centrist than an extreme ideologue, but those hopes are largely crushed. And we’ve had periods in our nation’s history when the courts tilted political, and we got over it. We will get over this as well, though I’m not sure I’ll be alive to see it. 

While not a perfect analogy, can you imagine the outrage if Colorado Gov. Jared Polis chose to attack members of the Colorado Supreme Court by name, and demanded they recuse themselves from anything touched by the Governor’s Office? The outrage would be, I believe, loud and bipartisan. 

The silence from the chief justice echoes loudly across our judicial system.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.