Mark Steyn agrees with me that, however ugly the twin towers were, they need to go back up. (via ninme, who has links to pretty much everyone's reax to yesterday's infamy in London. Anything I might say someone there's already said --except, perhaps, wasn't it just a few posts ago I was commenting on the tin ears of tyrants? Where loss of life is concerned, one doesn't wish to be crass, but could al-Qaeda have done itself more harm, politically? Bush & Blair are at an all-time low of popularity, and wham! In an instant everyone is reminded what this is all about.)
VDH on the London bombings.
Charles Krauthammer on O'Connor's philosophy --or lack thereof. Sample:
Her idea of jurisprudence was to decide whether legislation produced social "systems" that either worked or did not. But that, of course, is the job of the elected branches of government. Legislatures negotiate social arrangements. Judges are supposed to look at their handiwork and decide one thing and one thing only: whether the "system" the politicians produced comports with the Constitution. On what other grounds do judges have the authority to throw out legislation? Do they have superior wisdom about what works, superior capacity to decide which social boundaries require negotiation and which do not?
Precisely. Dems are asking for a "moderate" judge like O'Connor, but what the heck is that? As Justice Scalia asked in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson center this Spring:
What is a moderate intepretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean? There is no such thing as a moderate interpretation of the text. Would you ask a lawyer, "Draw me a moderate contract?" The only way the word has any meaning is if you are looking for someone to write a law, to write a constitution, rather than to interpret one. I think the very terminology suggests that's where we have arrived: at the point of selecting people to write a constitution, rather than people giving us the fair meaning of one that has been democratically adopted. . . .
The blogosphere is in a tizzy over the rumor that Stevens and Rehnquist will both announce their resignations today. Unlikely sez I, but if true, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Finally, I wish I'd saved the heading "Potpourri of Popery" for today, because there are just loads of things over at Zenit I want to point out to you. (The Pope's condolence letter to Londoners, talk of a papal visit to Israel, interesting interviews) Just go there and see for youself. Still crashing. . . .
