Larry Tribe is the smartest man alive

When Justice Souter retired, Larry Tribe, the famous Harvard law professor, wrote a letter to President Obama (his former student) urging him to nominate Elena Kagan.  The letter has now been leaked to Ed Whelan.  It is a very interesting letter.  One aspect that struck me was Tribe's apparent confidence that he could easily judge the relative intelligence of the front-runners. 

• On Sonia Sotomayor, the eventual nominee:  "Bluntly put, she's not as smart as she thinks she is."
• On Judge Diane Wood:  "More powerful intellectually than Sonia Sotomayor or any of the others mentioned as plausible prospects at the moment with the sole exception of Kagan, who is even smarter."

I guess when you're a professor at Harvard law school you get pretty confident in your ability to separate the brilliant from the merely very smart.  But, boy, what an ego!

Prof. Paulsen on the "separation of church and state"

Michael Stokes Paulsen, our old civil procedure professor, has some thoughts on Christine O'Donnell's comments about the separation of church and state, including:

Ms. O’Donnell’s pithy challenge—“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?”—is actually an excellent shorthand critique of those (like Mr. Coons, perhaps?) who would sloppily translate the First Amendment’s protections of religious liberty into incoherent hostility toward religion. And that is no laughing matter.

Caffeine + Alcohol = MADNESS!

Powers that be are moving to ban beverages like "Four Loko" that combine the alcoholic content of wine with the caffeine content of coffee.  The problem, supposedly, is that the caffeine interferes with that well-known natural effect of alcohol on young adults:  sleepiness.  Worse, the beverages may be "explicitly designed to attract under-age drinkers," what with their "colorful packaging and flavors like watermelon, blue raspberry and lemon-lime."   Consider the case of one student at Ramapo College, who was hospitalized after "drinking three cans of Four Loko and several shots of tequila in just over an hour."  Presumably, were it not for the caffeine in those three cans of Four Loko, the helpless student would simply have fallen asleep before he had the chance to drink those "several shots of Tequila."  These beverages are a menace.

I miss "Crossfire"

Like most people, I've been thinking about Juan Williams.

Perhaps unlike most people, when I think of Juan Williams I think of "Crossfire" (the old CNN debate show).  When I was in high school, I watched that show every day.  I loved watching the sinister Pat Buchanan go up against the earnest Michael Kinsley.  It was in his role as Michael Kinsley's understudy that I first became aware of Juan Williams.  Let's put it this way:  Juan Williams was no Michael Kinsley.

I stopped watching "Crossfire" in about 1995, around the time Buchanan rejoined his Pitchfork Brigade for another run at the presidency.  The show started to change.  Buchanan and Kinsley were gone, and so was the sober black background.  A studio audience was brought in.  Tucker Carlson.  Paul Begala.

This brings me to another man in the news:  Jon Stewart.  Famously, he killed "Crossfire."  He indicted the show for "hurting America" and accused its hosts (Carlson and Begala) of "partisan hackery."  In my view, the charges were shrill and trumped up.  But apparently they touched a nerve.  Just a couple months later, "Crossfire" was cancelled.

What are we left with?  Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck; Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow.  I am pretty ignorant about these shows.  I just don't watch much cable news.  (It always seems to be focussed on some runaway bride or another.  I don't understand the appeal.)  But it does seem like there's a dearth of true left vs. right debate on the airwaves.  I know O'Reilly has people (like Juan Williams!) on to debate, and I imagine the others do too.  But these are more like ambushes than debates.

So, I miss "Crossfire."  Maybe it's a dead format that wouldn't work today.  Maybe the culture has become too fragmented, too partisan, too cynical, and too idealogical.  I dunno.  I just know I'd watch.  (On YouTube, at least.)

Extreme skepticism

Yesterday a man named Tim Profitt forcefully pressed his foot down on the back, shoulder, or neck of a woman named Lauren Valle, who was already restrained, face-down, by another man.  Here's the video.



Ms. Valle is a MoveOn.org volunteer who was dressed up in Rand Paul gear and a blonde wig outside the venue for a debate between Rand Paul and his opponent, Jack Conway.  Apparently, she intended to confront Paul and present him with an "award" for being friendly to corporations.  When she attempted to do so, the events depicted in the video transpired.

Mr. Profitt was a volunteer with the Rand campaign, but the campaign has now "disassociated itself" with him.  He faces fourth-degree assault charges.  He claims we was just trying to defend Mr. Paul from an unknown assailant.

Jack Conway condemned the men involved in the incident in a strangely macho way:  "physical violence by a man against a woman must never be tolerated."  (Man-on-man violence is apparently tolerable, at least in some circumstances.  And woman-on-woman violence?  That's just hot.  Rrrr-owww!)

Mr. Profitt did not come forward as the "stomper" until late in the day today.  Before he came forward, Ann Alhouse speculated that the entire incident might have been staged:

Are the men in the T-shirts also from Moveon.org? Who were they? There were no arrests and though there was a crowd, no one bothered to have detained these men. Did they just melt back into the night? It's very convenient that these bad actors were wearing labels identifying them.

Hundreds of comments ensued.  Most of them bought into the conspiracy theory that the entire incident was staged.  My own interpretation of the video--and this was before Mr. Proffitt came forward--made me think that this was extremely unlikely.  The men who subdued Ms. Valle did not appear to be acting to me.  Mr. Proffitt's attack seemed so believably impulsive.  And the reaction of the others around--e.g., "no no no no no no no!" when Mr. Proffitt did his thing--seemed authentic.

Moreover, there were easy answers to all of Althouse's questions.  There were no arrests because there was a crowd.  Yes, the men melted back into the night--or at least melted back into the embrace of their compatriots.  And it's not convenient that the men were wearing Rand Paul insignia; it's exactly what you would expect political activists to be wearing at a debate.  

That so many of Althouse's commenters bought into the conspiracy theory is depressing to me.  It's one thing to be skeptical.  I am an avowed skeptic.  But in order to a functioning skeptic you have to be skeptical of your own skepticism.  You have to ask yourself, "Why am I inclined to distrust my own eyes?" If you don't cross-examine yourself with your own biases, you'll become either a cynic or an ideologue.  That's not good.

But this is the depressing part.  It's hard to find evidence of anyone on the Internet who isn't either an ideologue or a cynic.

UPDATE:

More video!

This shows that Ms. Valle rushed Rand Paul's car and tried to shove something at him through his open window. She is pulled away. Then, at about the :55 second mark, she comes around from behind the car to make a second run at the candidate. Presumably this is when she was tackled and treated roughly.

Update on Andrew Shirvell

Chris Armstrong, the object of Michigan Asst. Attorney General Andrew Shirvell's fascination, has withdrawn his petition for a protective order against Shirvell.  According to Armstrong's attorney, "The petition for a personal protection order was dismissed by Chris Armstrong because he received assurance that he will no longer be contacted by Andrew Shirvell."

Is the House of Representatives too small?

This is the question posed today by Gerard N. Magliocca at Balkinization. His primary argument is that increasing the size of the House is the only practical way to limit the influence of money in politics:

Suppose you doubled the size of the House of Representatives, which only requires a statute. This would accomplish the goals of both campaign finance reformers and libertarians. First, the cost of each campaign would go down because House districts would be smaller. Second, special interest groups would find it much more expensive to wield clout within a legislature. They would have to donate twice as much, in effect, even though the demand for money from candidates would be lower. Third, the influence of any single member would be reduced in a larger legislature, due to the higher transaction costs for public action, and would thus make it harder for a member to make a credible promise of a benefit to a donor.

The idea of regulating the House’s person-per-representative ratio has an interesting history. Such a proposal, in fact, was originally the very first article of the Bill of Rights that came out of the First Congress. The purpose of the proposal was to ensure a minimum representation for the common people in the new federal government. As passed by the House in 1789, the proposed amendment read:

"There is widespread recognition, across the political and ideological spectrum, that the United States is over-criminalized, and that over-criminalization poses serious threats to our liberties, our values, and our prosperity. With recognition and examination of this problem, it is now time to move to the next level – developing solutions."

That's from the description of a symposium held last week in D.C. called "Overcriminalization 2.0."  This alleged consensus is news to me, but I guess I'm part of it.

By the way, I'm guessing that "Overcriminalization 1.0" was a bit of a failure.

The Grudge Match.

So now that Wisconsin has won the Hartland Trophy, do we reverse the names of the blog until next year when Iowa avenges the loss inflicted on them by that portly purveyor of perfidy, Brett Bielma?

The wet side of the moon

It's pretty much a full moon tonight.  And the moon has been in the news.  According to NASA, the moon is wetter than the Sahara desert. According to my independent study, the moon is also drier than the Pacific ocean.   So, you know, somewhere in between there.