Sunday, September 25, 2005

Roberts' "Detachment"

This morning on This Week, George Will pointed out some truly amazing excerpts from Dianne Feinstein’s press release explaining her opposition to Judge Roberts. Here is one such gem:

And I asked him about end of life decisions – clearly, decisions that are gut-wrenching, difficult, and extremely personal. Rather than talking to me as a son, a husband, a father – which I specifically requested that he do. He gave a very detached response.

To quote Will, What in the Name of James Madison does that have to do with judging? I guess Feinstein wanted Roberts to emote about “poor Joshua” in the tradition of Justice (I use this term loosely) Blackmun. The ideal of the judge as a detached decision maker- applying reason, history and text to particular facts to particular factual circumstances- was lost on the Senator.

Aristotle once explained that “The law is reason, free from passion.” What this quotation means is not that human beings should not be passionate about law, or that legal results cannot give us either joy or sadness. Rather that the law should be applied to each person in a fair, impartial and dispassionate way. This is the essence of the rule of laws, not men.

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