A Solid Yardstick

Even with the terror attacks in London, the Supreme Court issue needs to stay near the top of the agenda.

Interestingly, yesterday on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, Professors John Eastman of Chapman and Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke were debating. Professor Chemerinsky characterized Judges (and potential Supreme Court picks) Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit and Mike Luttig of the Fourth Circuit as part of the "radical right" (and was immediately contradicted by Professor Eastman, of course).

In this piece, former NY mayor and Democrat Ed Koch has a solid measuring stick: " The positions of the candidate on hot button issues, e.g., abortion, gay rights, death penalty, environment, etc., so long as those positions are within the mainstream of the President’s party, should not bar the candidate from being confirmed."

Quite so. That's the de facto position that Republicans have taken with regard to recent Democratic nominees Ginsburg and Breyer. After all, both of them had histories that could have been exploited -- Ginsburg as ACLU lawyer, Breyer as Teddy Kennedy staffer -- to make them look as "extreme" on the left as anything the smear experts can dig up on potential nominees from the right.

Since the process really is a political one, it's best to be honest. If a nominee's philosophy -- and the attendant political results -- are within the mainstream of the nominating president's party, that should be the end of the matter . . . so long, of course, as the nominee has the requiste personal and intellectual qualities.