To the Editor:
Re “Democrats
Express Praise; Republicans Are Cautious” (news article, May 11):
The reaction by the left to Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme
Court is just as misguided as the reaction by the right, and for the
same reason.
Many on the left are angry at the nomination because they want to have a
counterweight to the right-wing Antonin Scalia. They miss the point of
what a Supreme Court justice should be.
Antonin Scalia is not a good justice because he is a right-wing
ideologue, and a practicing ideologue cannot be a good justice.
A counterweight—that is, a left-wing ideologue—is just as incapable
of being a good justice. Neither is capable of applying what that great
constitutional scholar Herbert Wechsler described as “neutral
principles.”
A judge is not supposed to be an advocate. He or she is supposed to make
decisions based on law and reason, and the principles that apply should
apply irrespective of the judge’s or a party’s political or social
viewpoint. That is the standard against which Ms. Kagan should be
tested. Whether or not she meets it remains to be seen.
Herbert Rosenberg
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., May 11, 2010
The writer is a lawyer.
Note from KBJ: Only in the fevered mind of Herbert Rosenberg is Antonin Scalia, an originalist, "a right-wing ideologue." Why do progressives insist on projecting their judicial activism onto others? Why can't they accept that conservatives such as Scalia are faithful to the Constitution rather than to their own moral or political views?
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 