How Bitter Will The Next S. Ct. Nomination Be?
Every day, it seems still more clear that, if Chief Justice Rehnquist retires, the fight over his replacement is going to be nastier than any confirmation that came before it. Reasonable people of all political stripes always bemoan that fact, but it seems almost inescapable.
Today’s illustration is a piece by Ramesh Ponnuru in the National Review Online going after Larry Tribe for a discussion of the Ninth Amendment in a Green Bag piece he wrote a couple of years ago. Is the National Review tackling a disagreement about the meaning of that constitutional provision? No, Ponnuru takes issue with the fact that Tribe “very strongly implied” that he had “made an extensive Ninth Amendment pitch” in the Richmond Newspapers case a quarter-century ago. Ponnuru thinks that strong implication is inaccurate.
Feel free to read the Tribe and Ponnuru pieces yourself. But there is a broader point here: what is a serious publication like National Review doing publishing something so profoundly silly as this long piece? Could it be a short blog post somewhere? If it’s accurate, perhaps. But this is umpteen words in the print version of the National Review.
The only thing I can figure is that the battle lines for the next Supreme Court nomination are being drawn in frighteningly personal terms. Tribe is an icon of the left who probably would be involved in a nomination fight, so the National Review has now joined the Weekly Standard – you’ll remember its recent piece concluding that sentences in a book Tribe wrote a couple of decades ago had an “uncomfortable reliance” on a book by Henry Abraham, to whom Tribe had sent an advance copy and whom Tribe credited – at trying to take a (lame) crack at Tribe’s personal credibility. Ponnuru seems to hit a new low, however, in spending a lot of words trying to make such a trivial point about an essay that is actually about the death of Tribe’s father – a subject that Ponnuru essentially back-handedly mocks.
Thankfully, these personal attacks in advance of the nomination haven’t gone beyond Tribe. But there isn’t much optimism that we’ve yet hit rock bottom. This is certainly the kind of thing that everyone says illustrates how the process is broken.
Full disclosure: we do regularly work with Larry Tribe on Supreme Court litigation. I didn’t talk with Tribe at all about the issue before writing this post. I do vaguely remember reading the Green Bag piece and thinking at the time that it was over the top, but that it was probably cathartic for Tribe, who is obviously trying to grapple with a very emotional issue.
FYI, for those who don’t know me, this is one of only a handful of times I’ve decided to editorialize a bit on the blog. I’m not a person who is at all active in partisan politics. People who know the firm know that we litigate what are perceived as liberal positions (e.g., that the nomination of Judge Pryor is unconstitutional) and conservative positions (e.g., arguing for the right of pervasively sectarian institutions to receive tax-free bond financing). I spent this morning mooting the states’ side of the Ten Commandments cases. The only stands I’ve ever taken on any nominee by any President were all in favor of Bush nominees: writing in support of Jeff Sutton; writing lengthy posts suggesting that John Roberts would be a great Chief Justice; and giving a bunch of interviews a couple of years ago saying that Janice Rogers Brown would be a very powerful nominee. So this isn’t just liberal push-back. I genuinely think that we are losing sight of substance in favor of personal attacks.
Tribe certainly should get the benefit of any doubt until he has a chance to refute Ponnuru, as Tribe has promised to do. However, to be fair to Ponnuru, I think it’s reasonable for him as a journalist to point out that Tribe himself in 2002 said that presenting fantasy as fact is “the cardinal sin” of scholarship, something worse than even plagiarism (something Tribe has admitted and apologized for, but only after being nailed by the Weekly Standard article), yet a year later in his 2003 “Green Bag” essay, Tribe took credit for a Ninth Amendment holding that is due Chief Justice Burger and the several lawyers who actually did argue the Ninth Amendment point, but who Tribe falsely asserts tried to talk him out of his “crazy” Ninth Amendment argument.
I’ve read the “Green Bag” essay, and if anything, Ponnuru understates the extent of the fantasy involved, assuming Ponnuru’s correct in his summary of the public record of the case, which I suppose he is, or NR’s lawyers wouldn’t have let the article be run. Assuming he’s correct, my only question is: why would Tribe do something like this, with all the risk involved (especially after writing in defense of Goodwin that such a thing is “the cardinal sin” for any scholar)? Your explanation, that 23 years after his father’s death Tribe was too emotionally crippled to think straight about the case, seems far-fetched, and hardly does justice to Tribe’s considerable intellectual and scholarly abilities. I doubt any “diminished capacity” defense will fly in this context, and to his credit Tribe has not attempted to assert one.
Comment by Brent Cooper — March 1, 2005 @ 6:37 pm
I agree. While we have always had partisan politics, since the Clinton era, gutter sniping, personal attacks, and the lack of civility seem to have taken hold and displaced real critical analysis. I can only hope that the comedian whose name I’ve long forgotten was right when he said that this country will be in real trouble only when we have a President named Ace.
Comment by Richard Hausman — March 1, 2005 @ 7:31 pm
Bushinations: Trampled Under Foot
Speaking of Bush, the use of language and political expectations. Public life is nasty these days, from any point on the spectrum, and it will get worse before (if) it gets better.
Comment by BillSaysThis — March 1, 2005 @ 9:59 pm
Why do you think this has a connection to Supreme Court nomination batttles? I haven’t read the Green Bag piece yet so I can’t comment on the merits of Ponnuru’s charges, but it seems to me that the basic dynamic of journalists on one side of the political spectrum being overly critical of intellectuals on the other side is pretty common. It may be a bad thing, certainly, but I don’t see a connection to the Supreme Court or future judicial nominations.
TG responds: o.k., timing, I suppose. It seems to me too coincidental that these pieces have come out now relating to events quite a bit in the past. That said, my take from the conservative blogospher citing to the newer piece is that there is a broader antipathy towards Tribe in that community — akin, I imagine, to how the liberal blogosphere would go after Ken Starr — that no doubt is illustrated by this piece.
Comment by A Former Scotus Clerk — March 1, 2005 @ 10:16 pm
Tom,
In response to your response, I don’t think the coincidence of timing is enough to link this to Supreme Court nominations. It seems that conservative journalists started scrutinizing the works of a number of prominent liberal academics (especially at Harvard) a year or so ago when it became apparent that there were some ghosts in the closets (mostly following the Ogletree matter). The timing reflects the time it takes to comb through old records, not future Supeme Court openings.
Plus, if you really wanted to go after those attacking conservative judicial nominees, why pick Tribe? Tribe was a player 20 years ago, but isn’t much of one today.
Comment by A Former Scotus Clerk Again — March 1, 2005 @ 10:50 pm
The Looming Nomination Battle
I agree with Tom to the extent that the Tribe story could have been relegated to a simple post in the blogosphere(i.e., my post). It must be said, though, that Tribe’s essay was over the top and he therefore is subject to such scrutiny…
Comment by JurisPundit — March 1, 2005 @ 11:03 pm
As I remember the facts, Mr. Tribe took responsibility for lifting entire passages from Henry Abraham’s book. Considering his stature in the legal academy I’m sure Tribe knows the importance of giving credit to authors when he borrows from their work. I don’t know if any other academic institution encourages attribution more than the legal academy. I’ve not read Ponnuru’s latest piece, but it does not seem to me that questioning Tribe’s integrity based on his editorial indiscretions should be out of bounds during any upcoming debate. While personal attacks can certainly get out of hand, I’d be discouraged if a writer’s character was not questioned for what is otherwise considered plagiarism.
Comment by law review editor — March 1, 2005 @ 11:30 pm
Ponnuru is living in the past, actually. Conservative lawyers and activists have much more antipathy today towards Prof. Sunstein for his political work on behalf of Sen. Schumer and his advocacy within the Democratic caucus of this new filibuster strategy. He, like Tribe or, say, Chemerinsky, is perceived to be a highly partisan political lawyer with an intense results orientation. They can’t enter the political fray and expect not to be subject to political rules….
Comment by Henry Clay — March 2, 2005 @ 2:14 am
It is legitimate to criticize someone for exaggerating his role in a historic decision, but Ramesh Ponnuru has no cause to level that criticism at Professor Tribe here.
Mr. Ponnuru is simply wrong when he dismisses the Ninth Amendment argument as “a mere rhetorical flourish” in Professor Tribe’s merits brief in Richmond Newspapers. The characterization is unwarranted and unfair.
Professor Tribe devoted seven pages of his merits brief (Part II-D, pp. 53-59) to the argument that Ninth Amendment preserved the public’s right to observe criminal trials. The section, whose heading even quotes the Ninth Amendment, began as follows:
“D. Even if Not Otherwise Enumerated, the Right Is Implicit in Ordered Liberty and Is Among the Rights or Privileges ‘Retained by the People.’
Even if this Court should conclude that the right of members of the public to be present as observers at criminal trials finds insufficiently specific ‘enumeration in the Constitution,’ that fact alone could ‘not be construed to deny or disparage’ the existence of such a right, as one ‘retained by the people.’ U.S. Const., Amend. IX.
On the contrary, a Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment right, privilege, or immunity of access to criminal trials would follow directly, even without more specific textual enumeration, from the central role of such a right in the ‘Anglo-American regime of ordered liberty,’ Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149-50 n.14 (1968) — a role at least informed, if not unambiguously guaranteed, by the First and Sixth Amendments, and one undeniably revealed in ‘this Nation’s history and tradition.’ Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977). . . .”
Professor Tribe then spent the next six pages supporting the proposition that the public right of access can be considered one of the unenumerated rights secured by the Ninth Amendment. The section concludes as follows:
“It follows that our right to attend criminal trials — to watch as silent observers the necessarily public drama of criminal justice — is secured not only by the texts of the First and Sixth Amendments, and not only as an interstitial inference from those two provisions taken together, but also as a cornerstoine of the Constitution’s fundamental structure.
Without that right, none of the other guarantees of liberty or of the rule of law could be assured. Both because the right has been honored by centuries of Anglo-American practice, and because its denial would leave a treacherous void in our constitutional scheme, that right must be counter among those ‘retained by the people.’”
Half of Professor Tribe’s 4-1/2 page reply brief was devoted to jurisdictional arguments. In the two pages devoted to the merits, Professor Tribe noted that appelles had not “addressed any of the reasons offered by appellants for concluding that the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, in conjunction with the Sixth, have long secured a right to attend and observe criminal trials.” Ponnuru discounts this as a “stray comment,” but what more was there to say on a point the other side had failed to address?
In short, Mr. Ponnuru built his article on a premise that the briefs show is unfounded.
Comment by David Remes — March 2, 2005 @ 9:51 am
Tribe’s Travails:
NRO’s Ramesh Ponnuru thinks Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe of “falsifying as fact what was, in truth, fantasy” — what Tribe himself has called the…
Comment by The Volokh Conspiracy — March 2, 2005 @ 10:24 am
Honestly, I think speculation over the partisan gridlock that a nomination would cuase is somewhat overblown. Though the Gonzales and Rice confirmation hearings were somewhat contentious at times, they still illustrated the fact that many more moderate Democrats don’t feel the need or possess the political will to contest this administration’s initial agenda-setting push. Indeed, I think the Boxer-sponsored motion to open floor debate in January over the Ohio vote (where she stood alone) is somewhat illustrative of many Democrats’ somewhat-sincere wish to achieve a climate of bi-partisan comity. Now, if a nomination takes on the character of some of the confirmation battles over Bush’s federal bench appointments, then there may be an argument that many Democrats are conserving their political capital for use in a nasty confirmation battle.
Still, the most bitter confirmation battle yet? I just don’t see how anything could ever possibly be as contentious as the Bork hearings, or even Nixon’s first two appointments.
Comment by Jesse — March 2, 2005 @ 10:57 am
Tom,
I think you unfairly downplay your liberal bias which underlies your defense of your mentor. Sure you have argued conservative positions in court but anyone who’s met you also knows that you were willing to argue anything that provided the chance to appear before the Supremes. That doesn’t change your personal beliefs, the fact that you were one of the first associates at Al Gore’s attorney’s firm, that you clerked for a quite liberal judge or that you donated the maximum allowed to John Kerry.
In this light, your critque of Ponnuru’s article as a preemptive partisan attack appears to be more a reusult of your affinity with Tribe and his political outlook than a valid rebuttal of the fact presented.
TG responds: So now we begin to see some of the dilemmas created by comments. I freely permitted this one like all others but it would be more valid I think if it came from someone other than Anonymous at fakeaddress@yahoo.com. The commentator holds him or herself out as knowing me, but seems more to state conclusions than explain their basis. Larry Tribe isn’t my mentor. David Boies gladly would have worked for George Bush if he’d been hired. And my personal views aren’t remarkably liberal. I tried to lay that out in the original post principally through my expressed opinions on the President’s nominees. So my view is that this isn’t the kind of comment that people should give particular weight to until the author wants to explain the basis for it. Nonetheless, it certainly is entitled to be posted as a comment on the blog — just take it for what it’s worth.
Comment by Anonymous — March 2, 2005 @ 12:21 pm
Kudos to Tom Goldstein for enabling comments, including negative ones like mine with which he surely disagrees.
I agree with some of Tom’s original post. For example, Ponnuru’s discussion of the circumstances of the death of Tribe’s father is somewhat disrespectful, at least in effect, though I don’t think Ponnuru’s intent was to actually mock his death (I think Ponnuru was trying to show how Tribe used his “private” grief for dramatic effect in his public story, but if so it came off a bit clumsy). And there’s some logic to suggesting that the National Review may have given extra prominence to this story because of the upcoming confirmation hearings, though even if true that seems acceptable, as the upcoming hearings probably make Tribe a more newsworthy figure.
However, the comments last night arguing it’s incorrect to link this article to the Weekly Standard article on Tribe from September 2004, as part of some coordinated effort to hurt Tribe’s credibility preparatory to confirmation hearings, seem correct. Keep in mind the history of the Weekly Standard coverage. Several years ago, the Weekly Standard ran articles attacking Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin as plagiarists. Last year, someone tipped the Harvard law dean to Ogletree’s plagiarism, and the Weekly Standard did an article on that once it surfaced. Then, Tribe himself opined on Dean Velvel’s blog about the problem of plagiarism, which led a law professor to tip the Weekly Standard about Tribe’s own borrowing from another scholar in a 1985 book (which Joseph Bottum mentioned in his article, and in more detail on Dean Velvel’s blog). Indeed, someone on The Volokh Conspiracy seems to see the Weekly Standard story on Tribe as closely linked to its earlier story on Ogletree: http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_27-2005_03_05.shtml#1109777023.
Remember also, the Weekly Standard article on Tribe came out last September, weeks before anyone knew Rehnquist was sick. So how could it have been part of a preemptive strike on someone who would likely play a role in confirmation proceedings on Rehnquist’s successor?
So the comment of “A Former Scotus Clerk Again” of 10:50 p.m. last night seems about right: conservative journalists are combing through the work of prominent liberal public intellectuals, Tribe’s come under scrutiny because of the tip last September to the Weekly Standard, and digging into Tribe’s more recent work has taken some time, and four months later has produced Ponnuru’s story. Ponnuru’s article on Tribe may not be the most important piece of legal journalism ever, but there’s nothing particularly nefarious about the timing.
Comment by Brent Cooper — March 2, 2005 @ 2:44 pm
In response to your inquiry about the email address, I’ll note that there can be many reasons why someone doesn’t want to post a valid email address. The one I made up seems more honest than the “court@court.gov” address of former scotus clerk that you apparently don’t take issue with.
As to substance, I’m only pointing out that I don’t think you have fully disclosed your interests in this fight. For example, from a financial perspective, I believe you do more than “work with” Tribe; I submit you get work from Tribe (based on the Legal Times) and to the extent his ability to get work is lessened by attacks on his academic honesty, then you might also receive less work, and thus less income. Politically, despite your (at least past) willingness professionally to represent certain “conservative positions,” the thousands of dollars you and wife donate to Democrats strongly suggest that personally you have a different political outlook than Ramesh.
As to not providing a “basis” for my arguments, I’m not the one who is effectively suggesting that, simply because the Chief Justice is ill, any criticism of a liberal academic is a preemptive partisan attack in preparation of a nomination fight. Indeed, using your logic, the criticisms of Ward Churchill would also constitute a partisan political attack because Churchill could reasonably be expected to oppose any Bush nominee. In short, because your attempt to transform a criticism of your colleague into the beginnings of a right-wing campaign is beneath your usual level of reasoning, I question whether you are truly being objective.
TG responds: I think this gets closer to my point, but maybe by proving it. I don’t think that the original post really conveyed that the commentator was speaking to my supposed liberal bias and relationship to Professor Tribe through something other than personal knowledge. My point was that the merit of a comment should be measured by the extent to which the reader is confident about what the reader knows. I’m not sure about the court@court.gov example. That was a post that equally disagreed with what I had written, and it wasn’t trying to suggest to the reader that the author knew some fact about me personally.
This comment says that I have a different political point of view than Ramesh. That I think is entirely fair and accurate. But I imagine that I fall into a place in the blogosphere that is underrepresented among authors of not being particularly partisan. It’s certainly true that I donated money to Kerry rather than Bush. So did millions of moderate people, just like millions of moderates who gave to Bush rather than Kerry.
The remainder of this comment seems pretty overstated. I won’t repeat it because it will then just come across as the use of scare quotes. I never said anything that approaches what’s described above regarding all attacks on liberal academics. I wrote in my post, and continue to believe — with some who agree and others who don’t — that these particular attacks on Tribe — the newest as something that seems profoundly silly — are targeted at him because of the prospect of a confirmation fight.
Comment by Anonymous — March 2, 2005 @ 4:18 pm
Ramesh Ponnuru posted this today on the National Review blog, “The Corner”:
LAURENCE TRIBE’S FRIENDS [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Actually, Jonah, there has been at least one attempt to defend Professor Tribe. It’s by Tom Goldstein, who notes in a partial disclosure that he “regularly work[s] with Larry Tribe on Supreme Court litigation.” His defense adopts several strategies to sidestep the issue of scholarly misconduct:
1) Mischaracterize what I wrote. Goldstein says that my criticism of Tribe is merely that he “very strongly implied” in 2003 that he had made a bold Ninth Amendment argument in a 1980 case when he didn’t. That’s part of the criticism in my article. But it’s not the entirety of it. And it’s important to note that it’s not the case that Tribe wrote one stray sentence or paragraph that strongly implied something false. The whole Tribe article makes no sense except as an attempt to portray his record in the 1980 case as different than it was. For example, since Tribe didn’t make anything close to the bold Ninth Amendment argument he later claimed to have made, there is ample reason to doubt Tribe’s 2003 account of having withstood pressure from powerful figures to back away from that argument.
2) Mischaracterize what Tribe wrote. That 2003 “essay . . . is actually about the death of Tribe’s father—a subject that Ponnuru essentially back-handedly mocks.” First of all, Tribe’s essay was not simply “about the death of Tribe’s father” and did not purport to be. It was about how that death gave Tribe the courage to be bold before the Supreme Court. I take it that Goldstein chooses the locution “essentially back-handedly mocks” since he can’t quote any examples of my actually front-handedly mocking the topic of Tribe’s father’s death. I did not mock that topic in any way. (Goldstein’s decision not to link to my article was strategically wise.) I didn’t, for example, suggest that Tribe’s treatment of it was “over the top,” as Goldstein does. I do, at one point, say that the “incident” which my article concerns—Tribe’s publication of an essay that seems to falsify his record—was “weird.”
3) Speculate about my motives. Goldstein believes that I am trying to damage Tribe in advance of a confirmation battle over Chief Justice Rehnquist’s replacement. I’m supposed to be under the impression that if Tribe’s credibility is damaged, there will be no other liberal law professors to write op-eds and testify against whoever Bush nominates. That’s nuts. I did the story because I thought it was an interesting story. Its timing reflects when I learned about the story.
My article stuck very closely to Tribe’s own words and to the record of the Supreme Court case involved. When I had to characterize, e.g., legal briefs, I tried to do so in as restrained and sober a way as possible, allowing for evidence that went against my thesis. (There was a very little bit of that.) I did not speculate about Tribe’s own motives. I did not do a lot of editorializing. I did not, for example, call Tribe slippery and dishonest. I am willing to say that, however, about one of his defenders.
TG responds: I may be alone in this, but I think this kind of vituperative response — e.g., slippery and dishonest — is illustrative of the mindset that my original post described. I thought Ponnuru’s original story was, as I said, silly — and I think his reply is silly too. That’s not my ducking the substance of these three points, the answers to which I think are pretty straightforward. I imagine (again, I haven’t talked to him about it) that Tribe thinks the piece in terms of his father’s death; Ponnuru thinks it’s about how that death gave Tribe the courage to be bold in the S. Ct. I think Ponnuru back-handedly mocks the death of Tribe’s father (through the use of scare quotes); Ponnuru thinks that’s insupportable. These are all judgments readers can make for themselves by reading the pieces, as I said in my post (which I don’t think anyone actually believes was intended to hide Ponnuru’s article, a piece that had been out for several days but had almost exclusively been mentioned in the conservative blogosphere). I leave it to those who’ve read both pieces to make whatever judgments they want.
But I don’t really see much of an answer to my basic point — that this enterprise is silly, a real stretch. Ponnuru implicitly denies that he was motivated by a desire to undermine Tribe pre-confirmation. So be it. My personal opinion of his level-headedness was higher before this posting on the Corner, but others can judge for themselves. (The hyperbole does run a little wild with the idea that my post suggested that Tribe was the only person who would oppose Bush’s nominees.)
I know that others delink these pieces in their minds from the looming confirmation battle. I don’t personally. Tribe does have a singular place in the S. Ct. confirmation process.
Now, Ponnuru’s post and David Remes’s response in his comment did inspire me to take a look at the substance of Ponnuru’s claim — bottom line, it appears that Ponnuru is (actually, to my surprise given the vehemence of his post) just wrong — and I’ll add an update to my original post on that score when time permits later tonight.
Comment by Tom — March 2, 2005 @ 4:19 pm
Because potential sources of bias seem to be a main topic of discussion, with Tom suggesting bias by Ponnuru, and suggesting there’s no strong basis for concern about bias on his part, and others questioning him on that point, I have this question: what about David Remes?
His email reveals he’s at Covington, and his firm biography reveals he went to Harvard law: http://www.cov.com/lawyers/dremes/biography.html.
Was Remes a student of Tribe, or does he otherwise know him? Google reveals Remes recently filed an amicus brief on behalf of Tribe’s side of a case: http://www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog/archive/2003_01_05_SCOTUSblog.cfm#87231553.
It may be Remes has no connection to Tribe, and in posting he’s acting simply as a lawyer concerned about Tribe being (in his mind) unfairly attacked. If so, that’s great.
Of course, if Remes has some sort of connection to Tribe, it should have been disclosed up front, just as Tom properly disclosed his conection, as it would tend to suggest Remes is acting as some sort of proxy for Tribe, who so far hasn’t issued the rebuttal to Ponnuru’s article he promised, although perhaps he is planning to do it in the form of a letter to the editor of the National Review. Some clarification, either way, seems in order.
TG responds: I disagree with this suggestion, although as with all the other posts I’ve read I respect it enough to put it up. It seems to me that there is a never-ending loop to this in which, for example, Brent Cooper is asked to disclose his contacts with people. If someone decides they want to provide context for their remarks, that’s fine. As I suggested in response to an earlier comment, I think people should take with a grain of salt the merits of comments when they don’t know the background of the author. But it doesn’t seem to me that there is merit to the idea that there is some sort of obligation to make a broader disclosure. Just my 2 cents.
Comment by Brent Cooper — March 2, 2005 @ 7:48 pm
This is a fascinating comment thread. It raises an interesting question: Can a blog devoted in theory to neutral coverage of the Supreme Court (albeit one trying to trumpet the work of Goldstein & Howe, obviously) coexist with more personal editorializing?
My own take is that it doesn’t work very well; the editorializing becomes a bit of a distraction. Fun distraction for readers, but probably not one that furthers the blog’s mission.
TG responds: I agree with this by and large. Hence the fact that I very rarely do it — I really can’t count 5 times in the blog’s history. In this case, I decided that it was best to create a separate blog for it because the further things I have to say clearly are my own personal views.
Comment by A Former Scotus Clerk, A Third Time — March 2, 2005 @ 10:27 pm
Tribal Mythmaking
Jonah Goldberg, a fellow not easy to croggle, is “simply amazed that Ramesh [Ponnuru’]s smackdown on Larry Tribe . . . hasn’t gotten more play. I just read it over the weekend and I’ve been waiting for the blowback. Basically,
Comment by Stromata Blog — March 2, 2005 @ 11:15 pm
Nuclear Options and Term Limits in the Judicial Wars: What Will It Take to Overcome the Impasse?
Even before the Chief Justice retires, newspapers and the blogosphere are focused on the question of the upcoming confirmation wars. (I won’t link here to all of the news reports and commentaries; Howard Bashman has comprehensively linked to the releva…
Comment by Election Law — March 3, 2005 @ 12:54 pm
Smackdown Over Tribe:
Ramesh Ponnuru and Tom Goldstein continue to duke it out over whether Larry Tribe presented a fictional account of his argument in the Richmond Newspapers case. There’s even a n…
Comment by The Volokh Conspiracy — March 3, 2005 @ 2:51 pm
Smackdown Over Tribe:
Ramesh Ponnuru and Tom Goldstein continue to duke it out over whether Larry Tribe presented a fictional account of his argument in the Richmond Newspapers case. There’s even a n…
Comment by The Volokh Conspiracy — March 3, 2005 @ 2:51 pm
Nil nisi bonum
Without trying to plunge Centerfield’s readers into a mire of legal subtlety, I would like to call attention to a situation that began to emerge twenty-four hours ago. Tom Goldstein, the proprietor of Goldstein & Howe, mentor to dozens of…
Comment by Centerfield — March 3, 2005 @ 6:47 pm
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