More Court Stuff

• I am tired of the term "Borked" being dredged up every time we have a SCOTUS nomination. It has become a truism--and not just on the Right--that the craziness of today has its origins in Bork having been Borked, and that Bork was treated unfairly. Bullshit. Robert Bork deserved a hearing and a vote, both of which he received. (Six Republicans voted against his confirmation.) He was entitled to that; he wasn't entitled to the seat. He was judged by the Senate to be unfit or unworthy of the seat. You can disagree with that, but he received a public hearing and a public vote. To somehow say he got the same treatment as, say,  Merrick Garland is utterly laughable.
• I think I agree with Bhaskar Sunkara here. There's not a lot to be gained by Biden having the Supreme Court as the focus of his campaign. Those for whom it's important are already on board. Don't run on culture war issues. That tends to make it a binary choice and to many conservative types--as Sunkara says--the importance of a conservative Court outweighs any misgivings they might otherwise have about Trump. (I, for one, have always felt that these "misgivings" are quite overrated.) Running on the old clichéd bread-and-butter issues is more productive. We can fight the culture war stuff after Biden is elected.
• Originalism in practice is just another term for "I can get to any decision I want." Originalists try to present themselves as more highly principled and intellectually disciplined that other jurists. But in practice they have pretty much pursued a political and cultural agenda, not really a legal one. A true originalist would never abide anything like Bush v. Gore, and yet Scalia was an eager participant. There's nothing originalist about money=speech or corporations are people, but here we are. So don't let the mainstream media fool you about these people. They know where they want to get and get there any way they can.