Perfect!
Posted on 07/15/2005 2:19:59 PM PDT by neverdem
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
Mr. President, they must think you're head of programming at CBS. Some people are telling you to name a Hispanic as your first Supreme Court nominee. Others say pick a woman. Harry Reid says pick someone who's not too controversial. Arlen Specter says look outside the judiciary for a fresh face.
They must think you are picking a TV host to build ratings against Katie Couric and Matt Lauer.
But this is a Supreme Court pick, not a programming choice. Nobody will care about superficial first impressions or identity politics tokenism a few years from now. What will matter in decades to come is whether you picked a philosophical powerhouse. Did you pick someone capable of writing the sort of bold and meaty opinions that will shift the frame of debate and shake up law students for generations?
If you can find a philosophical powerhouse who is also a member of a minority or a woman (like, say, Mary Ann Glendon), so much the better, but picking a powerhouse matters most.
Look, for example, at how Michael McConnell, who is often mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, already has influenced American life through sheer force of intellect. First as a professor and now as a judge, McConnell has outargued those who would wall off religion from public life. He's a case study of the sort of forceful advocate of ideas you have a chance to leave the country as your legacy.
McConnell (whom I have never met) is an honest, judicious scholar. When writing about church and state matters, he begins with the frank admission that religion is a problem in a democracy. Religious people feel a loyalty to God and to the state, and sometimes those loyalties conflict.
So he understands why people from Rousseau and Jefferson on down have believed there should be a wall of separation between church and state.
The problem with the Separationist view, he has argued in essays and briefs, is that it's not practical. As government grows and becomes more involved in health, charity, education and culture issues, it begins pushing religion out of those spheres. The Separationist doctrine leads inevitably to discrimination against religion. The state punishes people who are exercising a constitutional right.
In one case, a public high school allowed students to write papers about reincarnation, but a student who wrote on "The Life of Jesus Christ" was given a zero by her teacher. The courts sided with the teacher. In another case, a physiology professor at a public university was forbidden from delivering an optional after-class lecture at the university entitled "Evidences of God in Human Physiology," even though other professors were free to profess any secular viewpoints they chose. Around the country, Marxists could meet in public buildings, but Bible study was impermissible.
McConnell argued that government shouldn't be separated from religion, but, as Madison believed, should be neutral about religion. He pointed out that the fire services and the police don't just protect stores and offices, but churches and synagogues as well. In the same way, he declared in congressional testimony in 1995, "When speech reflecting a secular viewpoint is permitted, then speech reflecting a religious viewpoint should be permitted on the same basis." The public square shouldn't be walled off from religion, but open to a plurality of viewpoints, secular and religious. The state shouldn't allow school prayer, which privileges religion, but public money should go to religious and secular service agencies alike.
McConnell's arguments have had a profound effect on court decisions. In the '70s and '80s, Separationists were in the ascendant. But in the past decade, courts have returned to the Neutralist posture McConnell champions.
In short, McConnell is a perfect example of how a forceful advocate -- a person who can make broad arguments on principle and apply them in practical ways -- can have a huge influence on the law. This is the sort of person any president should want to nominate for the Supreme Court.
Yet presidents often make their Supreme Court picks on the most trivial bases: because so-and-so is a loyalist or a friend, because so-and-so has some politically convenient trait or ties to some temporarily attractive constituency. By thinking too politically, presidents end up reducing their own influence on history.
Mr. President, don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Ideas drive history, so you want to pick the person with the biggest brain.
David Brooks writes for The New York Times. E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com.
My first reaction is that if the NY Times's tame conservative favors Michael McConnell, then I'm against him. But who knows, maybe he's OK. Certainly our liberal enemies don't like him, as exemplified by PFAW in a commentary on what they euphemistically call "reproductive rights":
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=5030
sounds good so far..........
Blessings, Bobo
Thanks for the link.
>>> My first reaction is that if the NY Times's tame conservative favors Michael McConnell, then I'm against him. <<
I certainly don't trust David Brooks, so I must look at McConnell with much suspicion.
No, but they don't sound a thing like me (smile).
Blessings, Bobo
But then this mismash was printed in the NY Times which probably thought it was being very bold in publishing such a contrarian view.
The criteria for a Supreme Court appointment can be made quickly and simply. It is, however, necessary to have a clue about the constitutional process to do that. Click below.
Congressman Billybob
Nominate Mark Steyn...
I can't vouch for Michael McConnell, but he seems to be a judge, and not the same guy as Mitch McConnell. Check out the PAW comments in my link in #3. There are further links to more articles on why they hate McConnell at the left side of their page.
Nominate Mark Levin. He's a scholar, Jewish and an originalist. I would love to see Democrats take swipes at Levin. Especially since Hillary would have to deal with a Jewish contingent come 2006.
Mark Levin! What temperament, though he would be great.
After the paddy wagons haul the remaining Dems not already in the psycho ward there, he can withdraw his nomination, then wink, smirk, and say in that slow Texas drawl, "Hey,... I was just kiddin'!", - then nominate Janice Rogers Brown!
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