When an Ohio Supreme Court justice turns partisan

For all of the alarm over government spying,  the fear is  obviously  less than  skull deep for those politicians who have yet to pick up on the modern digital age. In short, there is always somebody  listening... somebody recording... somebody filming - and they're not the nosy government. The whole scheme to hold you foolishly accountable largely derives from a small device with James Bond potential  that many people grip in one hand in shopping malls, football games, political meetings and anywhere else where the "real" you could be exposed.

Let's call it the Romney Matter-over-Mind Moment  when - you still remember, don't you? - he was secretly recorded and filmed by a bartender as he spoke at a fund-raiser in Boca Raton.  Yep, his awkward 47 pct.  theory about the electorate! A forever vigilant  media cried "yippee!" and soon shot it across the nation's tv screens, providing  his opponents  with more riches-to-rags contrasts from the GOP warehouse.

Fast forward to the current nightmarish campaign season and an example  of how loose lips might sink judgeships. It was produced in  an appearance by Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith French in her introduction to Gov. Kasich before a friendly Republican group.

Here  are the comforting partisan words that  the Republican justice, supposedly a non-partisan candidate  to return to the bench, had to say, as widely reported:

"Whatever the governor does, whatever your state representative, your state senator does, whatever they do we're the ones that will decide whether it's constitutional.  We decide whether it's lawful. We decide what it means, and we decide how to implement it in a given case.

"So forget  all those other votes if you don't keep the Ohio Supreme Court conservative."

Heavens! Does it sound like a call to  support  a justice who arrived on the bench  after she was nominated by Gov. Kasich to fill a vacancy and now faces formidable oppposition from Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell, a Democrat?

Oh. she said her  remarks were misinterpreted  and not what she had in mind. But the political universe is filled with reports that the speaker didn't mean to say it the way it sounded. But you know how those things go.

On those occasions when Romney's words came out wrong, he said he hadn't spoken elegantly.  I would think a Supreme Court Justice would also know better.