"Activist federal judges in the District of Columbia and Providence, R.I., have already thrown two chilling strikes at journalists for refusing to betray their sources."but safire's "judicial activism" refers to the judges' failure to create a brand new first amendment privilege for reporters to protect their sources. never mind that the supreme court has already ruled that reporters have no such privilege (see Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665, 691 (1972)).
later in the column safire notes that thirty states have created a privilege for journalists. he concludes the article stating "it's up to Congress to enact a federal shield law." the flip side of that is the fact that congress has not yet created a privilege. "judicial activism" is usually described by conservatives as "legislating from the bench." and yet, safire brands judges as activist who refused to do precisely that.
the term "judicial activism" perhaps once referred to an actual phenomenon. but these days all it means is that the speaker didn't like the outcome of the case and is trying to disguise personal opinion in a false sense of objectivity that comes with an ill-defined and misused term.
