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Nov. 6, 2009
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Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 16, 2006 / 16 Teves, 5766

What's with these hardscrabble tales from Supreme Court nominees?

By James Lileks


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | If Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees are expected to open with Stirring Tales of Humble Upbringings, then we should be honest and move the venue to Oprah's couch.


Apparently the citizens who fear that Samuel Alito will repeal the eleventy-second Amendment — you know, the one with the rights to privacy and prescription drugs from Canada — are supposed to be mollified by a tale of hardscrabble determination.


Well, it won't work, and this biography-is-destiny approach is misguided. Let us imagine two fictional nominees whose "life stories" have informed their attitudes toward the Constitution, and see which one you'd prefer. Cue Straw Man No. 1:


"Thank you for letting me into the Senate today. Pardon my suit; back where I come from, they're all made of hay.


"I was born at the bottom of a coal mine to poor parents — my mother died before I was conceived, and my father made a living carving balsa-wood peg legs for sailors. Didn't get much repeat business, as you can imagine. Every night he'd tell me and my 32 siblings that one day we were all going to go to college, and when we got there, we should gather up everything that looked valuable and run it back here to the house.


"But sometimes he'd take me aside and tell me I could go to college and stay there. I could improve myself. I could go to med school, and maybe learn how to sew an extra arm on my side. `It'd come in handy in a card game,' he said.


"I don't think he meant it as a joke. Jokes were for rich people. At most we could afford a limerick around Christmas. But I never forgot what he meant, and as I sit here today, the first man in my family with a college degree and a wife with teeth and an extra arm, I am reminded that America is a wonderful place where a man can be named to the highest court in the land on the strength of biographical anecdotes.


"So I pledge myself to judge the law according to my personal circumstances, and contort the Founders' wishes to help the groups who most closely mirror the economic circumstances of my formative years. Thank you."


It would be refreshing if a nominee told a different story:


"Gentlemen, and I use the terms in conformance with its most elastic definition, I submit to this appearance with equal amounts of rue and bemusement, particularly since it falls during the time I usually thrash my footman for sins both real and contemplated. It seems I must explain myself to a series of low-born mountebanks and trust-fund wastrels, in order to ingratiate myself with the herd of sheep over whom my rulings will fall. Very well.


"I was born in a manger, surrounded by farm animals, attended by wandering kings — Mother had entered one of her rustic moods, and had the servants build a creche in the west ballroom. The kings were authentic, mostly second-tier low-country rabble, but one of them, a rather sweaty Belgian, told my mother I had the mark of greatness on me.


"He referred, of course, to this birthmark on my skull in the shape of the Masonic emblem; it is the reason I shave my head, of course.


"In any case, I attended expensive colleges, served as judge for two decades, translated the Federalist Papers into six languages. I will rule according to the words of the Constitution, and damn the consequences. Now if you don't mind, I am late for my weekly colonic irrigation with a solution of ambergris and champagne. So get on with it."


The first fellow would be the national darling. Senators would strew petals in his path; Newsweek would crown him "The People's Justice." If he later found that the Constitution contained an unlimited number of heretofore undiscovered rights, his name would adorn elementary schools across the land. The latter example would be regarded as Count Borkula, and find himself working a hand-cart to Obscurity Junction with Harriet Miers. Which would be better suited to uphold the Constitution?


Depends whether you pronounce "uphold" as "interpret." Or even "invent."

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor James Lileks is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Comment by clicking here.

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© 2006, James Lileks

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