JUDGING WITH EMPATHY MEANS JUDGING WITH PARTIALITY: THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS JONAH GOLDBERG BY WEEKS - AND YEARS...

JONAH TODAY - (VIA NRO):

According to Obama and countless other liberals, this sort of compassion in the law is “pragmatic” because it pays heed to the real world and real people as opposed to legalistic abstractions such as impartial justice. As former Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman put it last year: “I’ve never been sure why Lady Justice wore a blindfold as part of her permanent wardrobe. Yes, it’s supposed to be a symbol of impartiality. But it does limit her vision a bit.” For Goodman, the best judges reject the “myth” of impartiality.

Of course impartial justice is an abstraction, but it isn’t so much a myth as an ideal. Since we are all designed from the crooked timber of humanity, we can only approximate perfect justice.

What I don’t understand is why we should abandon an ideal simply because it is unattainable. If I can’t be a perfect husband, should I get a divorce? If an umpire can’t call each game flawlessly, should he stop trying? Maybe for 95 percent of pitches the ump should call ’em straight, but for the other 5 percent he should give the black or gay batters the benefit of the doubt?

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS YEARS AGO (5/23/09):

WHEN JUDGES DECIDE BASED ON THEIR EMOTIONS - OR CONNECTIONS - AND NOT THE LAW, THEN THERE IS NO LAW.

THERE IS - IN PLACE OF THE RULE OF LAW - THE RULE OF THE RULERS.

OF THE MACHINE: IF YOU ARE CONNECTED TO THE MACHINE THEN YOU WIN.

IF NOT???

YOU'RE FUC*ED.

THIS IS HOW IT WAS IN NAZI GERMANY AND THE USSR.

AND IT'S WHAT OBAMA HAS IN STORE FOR US - IF WE LET HIM.

AND AGAIN LAST WEEK:

NYTimes:

After 1994, though, when the retirement of Justice Harry A. Blackmun made Justice Stevens the court’s senior associate, the language of his dissents started to become noticeably sharper, with a theme running through them: that the Supreme Court had lost touch with fundamental notions of fair play.

I think the Constitution trumps a person's personal sense of "fair-play". I think it trumps a judge's sense of fair-play - even a Justice's sense of fair-play.

And Justice's should decide based on the LAW, not their personal idea of how a decision might lead to an end they like.

JUDGING WITH THIS SENSE OF "FAIR-PLAY" IS ACTUALLY A PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: JUSTICE IS SUPPOSED TO BE BLIND - AND NOT CARE ABOUT THE RESULT OR WHO MIGHT BENEFIT, BUT JUST FOLLOW THE LAW.

Actually "fair-play" is leftist code for "economic justice" and that means guaranteeing a result and that is socialism.

If you want more "fair-play" than is in the Constitution, then amend it, don't bend it.

I hope the GOP filibusters Obama's nominee until next year.

REGULAR READERS KNOW WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME.

SPREAD THE WORD.

BONUS: WE CONTINUE TO PREDICT OBAMA WILL DELIBERATELY NOT PICK A NOMINEE WITH A PENIS.