The editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won't hold the lead for long, but for the moment they may have offered the most despicable mainstream commentary on President Bush's nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court:

Another minus is that the nomination lessens the court's diversity. O'Connor herself had expressed the desire that her successor be a woman. O'Connor seems to have grown wiser about diversity as a result of her Supreme Court experience. She came to see the virtues of having a court that looks like America - doubtless a big reason she softened her opposition to affirmative action in recent years.

In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.

That's Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the Court's most brilliant and original thinkers--the justice with an "asterisk." But here is what I really don't understand: the liberals at the Journal Sentinel apparently think that Supreme Court justices are like House members who represent constituencies, and are supposed to vote according to the wishes of those they represent. That's a stupid idea, obviously. But stay with it for a moment. If that is their theory, then why do the same liberals consistently praise Supreme Court decisions that frustrate the wishes of most Americans? If the Supreme Court is a sort of representative democracy, then who represents the large majority of Americans who don't want the Court to fabricate hitherto-unknown "rights" out of whole cloth, and their own political biases?

Posted by John at 09:53 PM  |    |