Gov. Jeb Bush's appointment of Raul Cantero III to the state Supreme Court and the way Bush described his contempt for the entire American judiciary made for good political theater.

Gov. Jeb Bush went to the west plaza of the Capitol Wednesday, so the Supreme Court building would show in the background, to announce his appointment of Raul Cantero III as the replacement for retiring Justice Major Harding. But for a few minutes it seemed the event was less about Cantero's niche in history, as Florida's first ethnic Hispanic justice, than about Bush's re-election campaign. As Cantero waited to be introduced, the governor sharply denounced the entire American judiciary. He decried the "increasing power of courts" which, he said, "should not come at the expense of institutions that have a more legitimate claim to govern our lives." Far too often, he said, "our courts . . . have substituted their own personal views for the laws enacted by the people and their representatives. . . . Increasingly, courts have seized control over policy decisions that are not theirs to make."

The scene and the subject made great political theater. Those who missed it on the evening news will have second and subsequent chances in the form of Bush campaign commercials, no doubt featuring his specific reference to the recent Pledge of Allegiance ruling, which he described as a danger to "the institutions and customs that hold us together as a society."

The governor also plainly had the death penalty in mind. Just the day before, he had said he would continue to sign death warrants despite the Supreme Court's decision to stay two executions while it contemplates, as it surely should, whether Florida's death sentencing system is endangered by the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Arizona's. Attempting more executions while that serious issue is unresolved is, at best, a waste of time and money for no apparent purpose other than politics.

Contempt for courts cuts both ways, of course. Liberals could speak as ill of some of the Rehnquist court's decisions overturning acts of Congress and undermining the Bill of Rights. The more troubling part of it is the governor's assertion that either of the other branches of government, the executive or the legislative, has a "more legitimate" claim to govern. In the American system, each branch is equal. It bears remembering that not so long ago there were politicians, including most of Florida's, who raged that the courts had no right to interfere with racial segregation and the malapportionment of legislatures. Who today would say those courts had abused their powers?

Bush's polemic introduction invited the question: What commitments had the governor sought from Cantero? None, he insisted, apart from every candidate's standard and proper promise to try to follow the law rather than make it. The governor said he had asked no "litmus test" questions of anyone, as to do so "would be improper."

On one such question, of course, Cantero's position was already well known. He opposes abortion, having so expressed himself in a letter to a newspaper. He is entitled to that or any other personal view; the real question is how he will reconcile it with the Florida court's 1989 decision that abortion is protected by the Florida Constitution's right to privacy provision. Cantero said Wednesday he would not let his personal opinion on any particular issue influence his understanding of the law.

Bush was disingenuous, however, in responding to a question about Cantero's public advocacy of the anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch during deportation proceedings 13 years ago. Everyone has a right to a lawyer, the governor said. True enough. But that wasn't the issue. On talk radio, far removed from any court, Cantero had defended Bosch as a "Cuban patriot." That's interesting. The U.S. government called him a terrorist.

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