Obama's bias

George Will:

SEN. Barack Obama recently told some Iowa farmers that prices of their crops aren't high enough, considering what grocers are charging for other stuff: "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" Iowans, who have no Whole Foods stores, might recall 1987, when Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis urged farmers to diversify by raising endive. Said a farmer to a Boston reporter, "Your governor scared me just a hair."

Obama is not scary, just disappointing. Regarding a matter more serious than vegetables - a judicial confirmation - he looks like just another liberal on a leash. His candidacy kindled hope that he might bring down the curtain on the long-running melodrama "Forever Selma," starring Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It was hoped Obama would be impatient with the ritualized choreography of synthetic indignation that degrades racial discourse. He is, however, unoriginal and unjust regarding the nomination of Leslie Southwick to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction is Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Southwick, now a law professor, joined the Army Reserve in 1992 at 42 and in 2003 transferred to a National Guard combat unit heading to Iraq, where he served 17 months. He is now 57 and until last December was a member of a Mississippi appellate court. The American Bar Association, not a nest of conservatives, has given him its highest rating for the 5th Circuit.

But because he is a white Mississippian, many liberals consider him fair game for unfairness. Many say his defect is "insensitivity," an accusation invariably made when specific grievances are few and flimsy.

Obama, touching all the Democratic nominating electorate's erogenous zones, concocts a tortured statistic about Southwick's "disappointing record on cases involving consumers, employees, racial minorities, women and gays and lesbians. After reviewing his 7,000 opinions, Judge Southwick could not find one case in which he sided with a civil-rights plaintiff in a non-unanimous verdict." Surely the pertinent question is whether Southwick sided with the law.

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Southwick's Senate opponents, having failed to find ammunition in any of his 985 opinions (Obama's figure of 7,000 opinions is interestingly imprecise), cite two cases in which he joined other judges' opinions. Both cases concerned the proper parameters of government agencies' discretion.

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Why does Obama think Southwick should have ruled differently in the two Mississippi cases? Because he thinks Southwick applied the law inappropriately? Or because he doesn't like the result? Obama is seeking the office from which federal judges are nominated. Southwick has explained himself, in writings and in Senate testimony. Now Obama has explaining to do.

Don't hold your breath George. Democrats don't want the rule of law with well reasoned opinions, but instead treat the courts like they treat other institutions where outcomes proves bias regardless of the underlying facts. The same people who don't see discrimination in the NBA's selection of tall blacks are likely to see discrimination in the lack of black participants in the America's Cup race. Don't look at the underlying differences in the interests of the participants and the skills they bring to the activity.

Democrats who oppose Southwick should remember that they may be nominating judges again someday and they are setting a standard that their candidates can't meet.