Pardon the Constitution

Don't Fly Off the Handle, Big Boy

This is an interesting story, Wilbon, and one that legal academics are already blogging over. But before you go all Kobe on the good judge, let's consider this. Luttig, about whom I will admit I went on television and wrongly predicted would get the nomination that went to Roberts, is something of a wunderkind. At 51, he's done a lot more than most lawyers and judges could hope to accomplish in a career. He's an intellectual and it's quite possible he's just looking for a new challenge in life. At that young age, he's been a federal judge for 15 years! Fifteen! Is he really going to sit on the bench for another 20 years and issue more decisions about habeas corpus or the Lanham Act?

OK, now let's take the cynical approach and say the good judge was a little, shall we say, miffed when he was passed over by W in favor of the Orel Hershiser of the federal bench, our new CJ, and a guy who once attended a Phillies' fantasy camp! Notice anything about these two guys, Wilbon? There's no way Luttig is getting on to SCOTUS in our lifetime. Even the Republicans don't have the cojones to put three white males in a row on the Court. And let's consider the money factor. I've got two kids about the same age as Luttig's. And I don't even come close to making what he makes as a judge. Would it be tempting to take on a job that guaranteed that they wouldn't have to borrow $200,000 each just to get a B.A. in basketweaving from Mississippi Valley State? Sure it would.

One last thing. Don't believe for a second that Luttig is done in public life. He'll go to Boeing, sit around and do meetings, and earn enough dough to put into the kids' educational IRAs, and then he'll come back and be, what, the AG or SG under President McCain? Who knows? At that point, he may still be young enough to make another run at the Court.

Is That All You Got?

Hey, last time I checked, the only elections that mattered on judicial appointments were the ones that put the people in office who are there when the nominee comes up. So leave my boy, Jimmy, alone. So what's with your, won the election, standard? That means Al Gore ought to have made all of the appointments between 2000 and 2004!

And no, my point is not that the Senators get equal say in who gets appointed. But if 51 of 'em don't like the nominee the Prez is slurpin' on, guess WHAT? Bye, bye....

I suppose you would have voted to confirm Bork because your boy, Ronnie Reagan, won the '84 election in a landslide. Try to do better next time.

He's YOUR Boy!

Yeah, he may be getting confirmed. But SHOULD he be confirmed? I'm sick and tired of this crap about how the Republicans won the White House. The Constitution creates a role for the Senate in this, too. I think Biden won his election last time around. Come to think of it so did Leahy, Kennedy, Kohl, Feinstein, Feingold, Schumer, and Durbin! What, are they supposed to just lay down and cry because the head of the ticket couldn't campaign his way out of a paper bag!? The Dems lost the election, give me a break. They lost ONE election. And why should it even matter if they did? Isn't the Court the one anti-democratic mechanism we have in our Constitution? Isn't that a good thing?