Ruth Bader Ginsburg Complains of Right Wing Death Threats

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is complaining that she's getting "death threats" from detractors who belong to the "irrational fringe" of society - people she says who have been egged on by mainstream conservatives who have been critical of the High Court.

In quotes picked up by The Associated Press Wednesday, Ginsburg told the Constitutional Court of South Africa last month that somebody in an Internet chat room had issued a death threat against herself and her former colleague, Sandra Day O'Connor.

According to Ginsburg, the chat room perpetrator declared:

"OK commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment ... an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use (foreign) laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases. This is a huge threat to our republic and constitutional freedom ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."

In a follow-up speech earlier this month, the Clinton-appointed justice said the whole experience had been "disquieting" for her.

The AP cited Ann Coulter as an example of a conservative who may have inadvertently encouraged radicals to threaten members of the court by joking during a recent speech that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned.

Neither Ginsburg, O'Connor nor the AP complained in 1994, when liberal commentator Julianne Malveaux "joked" about Clarence Thomas: "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease."