Tuesday, November 16, 2004

A Nobody Weighs in on the Supremes

Well, for reasons I certainly can't grasp, nobody in the new Bush administration has called me for recommendations on nominations for a new Supreme Court justice, should one be needed. If they call, I'm going to throw my not-unsubstantial weight behind Judge Alex Kozinski, ringmaster of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California. Not only did he once write an opinion on an adult theater case composed entirely of titles of adult movies, but last summer he went to the mattresses to be recognized as an official judicial hottie (hey, I can't make this stuff up!). I was honored that he listed my profile of him as a source.

Not only that, but he's screaming brilliant; hanging around with Judge Alex is sort of like standing next to a blast furnance of brain cells. His dissent in the Silveira case, where the Ninth ruled against an individual interpretation of the Second Amendment, is truly a thing of beauty. Let me just quote his conclusion:
"The sheer ponderousness of the panel's opinion -- the mountain of verbiage it must deploy to explain away these fourteen short words of constitutional text -- refutes its thesis far more convincingly than anything I might say. The panel's labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight has all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on it -- and is just as likely to succeed."
If the Bush administration calls you, now you'll know who to recommend. Also, if Judge Alex calls you to go snowboarding with him, wear a helmet!

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