The Cult of the Court

Christ:

Akil Ahmar wins this year's Neal Katyal Award for meritorious service on behalf of contrarianism https://t.co/VygfW9czIb

— David Dayen (@ddayen) July 10, 2018

And the title ain’t misleading:

The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be the next Supreme Court justice is President Trump’s finest hour, his classiest move. Last week the president promised to select “someone with impeccable credentials, great intellect, unbiased judgment, and deep reverence for the laws and Constitution of the United States.” In picking Judge Kavanaugh, he has done just that.

Cavanaugh will be a vote to overrule Roe v. Wade (whether directly or sub silentio), eviscerate the Voting Rights Act, undermine the regulatory state, threaten legislation passed by the next Democratic Congress based on whatever ad hoc theory the most libertarian member of the Volokh Conspiracy dreams up, etc. etc. So he went to Yale Law –who cares? Trying to make “credentials” the issue here is misleading readers about the impact of this nomination and the actual practice of the Supreme Court. Amar is a brilliant scholar but I really wish they’d stop doing this.

UPDATE:

American constitutional law remains objectively the strangest academic discipline.

It's like if every philosophy department only read Plato's Republic, insisted that Plato was wrong about nothing but also agreed with them about everything, and refused to read other philosophers.

— Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt) July 10, 2018