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365. Incoherence watch

By Joel Jacobsen

I recently ran across the profile of the eponymous hero of the Brennan Center for Justice, which begins:Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. is universally regarded as one of the most influential and liberal justices of the second half of the 20th century. If the liberal Brennan was so influential, it must mean that we live under a liberal government.  But who believes that?  Well, sure, there's those whack-jobs who show up at McCain / Palin events, to at least one of the candidates' embarrassment.  But somehow I don't think the Brennan Center meant to refer exclusively to those people with its "universally." If you agree that the American polity under Reagan and the Bushes has been markedly conservative, and that Clinton was politically successful in part precisely because he "triangulated" between the left and the right, it's difficult to see in what sense any American liberal has been conspicuously influential in recent decades...continue to full post

Full post as published by Judging Crimes on October 18, 2008 (boomark / email).