Hugh Hewitt: Byrd Droppings

The Weekly Standard isn't one of my regular readings, but Yahoo's op-ed assortment alerted me to Hugh Hewitt's latest column. Great piece.

I've never liked Robert Byrd. I could accept that he's renounced his KKK days, but he's renowned as one of the biggest pork barrel spenders on Capitol Hill; his "eloquent speech" against invading Iraq was not just a collection of every anti-war cliché, but strictly out of partisanship; and he's often helped obstruct the nomination of good judges who might actually respect the Constitution. Most American schoolchildren learn in civics class that compromise is part of the American way, that it's how we wrote our Constitution, etc. So we grow up, compromise, and get justices like this:



I was 14 when George H.W. Bush nominated Souter. I remember all the talk about how he's a "moderate," which we now know to be claptrap. Had we just one more justice like Robert Bork instead of "moderate" Souter, under-18 murderers would get their just desserts.

Bork is considered a big influence on Scalia, whose dissent in Roper v. Simmons impressed me.