More on Law

The other day George Will raised his lance and charged at full gallop at the straw effigy of Charles Schumer, ranking Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee. Mind you, this committee, the one that gets to hold hearings on John Roberts, the President’s nominee for the position of Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, like every other committee in the House of Representatives or the Senate, is dominated by *Republicans*. Will’s rhetorical questioning of the minority representative Schumer about *his* legal philosophy, with its consequent lampooning of the actions of Congress, ridiculous snippets from some of the “liberal” Justice’s opinions, and series of “questions” about non-literalist legal hermeneutics is prima facie moronic: Schumer is not on trial here; Schumer doesn’t sit on the Supreme Court; Schumer didn’t write the opinions of the Justices Will lampoons; Schumer isn’t even in the majority party. If Will means to question Schumer’s competence as a Supreme Court candidate, then perhaps he should wait until such time as he is nominated; if Will means to question the competence of a public official, then perhaps he can do so in a less undergraduate way–Schumer might very well have good answers to Will’s inane questions–motivated as they are by the selective and therefore untenable constitutional literalism favored (when it suits them) the Justices Will admires–but never are Schumer’s actual pronouncements presented. That said, Schumer might actually be incompetent (though that would still not disqualify him to sit next to Orrin Hatch), it’s just that on Will’s argument, we’ll never know.

One thought on “More on Law”

  1. Hey, your “blog” was given mention on the Washington Post website. Way to go. I guess.

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