October 15, 2005

If it is true, as my current colleague Jonathan Adler has found, that Sixth Circuit Judge Alice Batchelder was dismissed from consideration for the recent SCOTUS position for reasons of "judicial actvism", then the indictment of those who do the vetting is complete.

Judge Batchelder, and her Sixth Circuit colleague Danny J. Boggs, are clearly among the most principled, competent, and restrained jurists in the country. Both remain principled, competent, and restrained even when this gets them into trouble -- witness their comportment during the infamous Grutter case. Indeed, I suspect that it was their restrained insistence on the Rule of Law in Grutter that got them disqualified -- especially given recent revelations (http://bench.nationalreview.com/) that Harriet Miers was and is a vibrant defender of racial preferences.