Tuesday, January 10, 2006

On the subject of bad excuses

It appears that the supreme court nominee was part of a Princeton organization which was opposed to large numbers of women and minorities attending the university (it's hard to determine exactly what the group's stance was, but it seems clearly reactionary). The best excuses that the various people were able to offer when interviewed by the Daily Princetonian were that he might not have been in the organization despite having listed it on a resume, or if he was in it, that was merely to get jobs and wouldn't have mentioned it on his resume unless he was exploiting a connection to someone in the organization. So either he's a liar or completely unprincipled. Good traits for a justice, I hear.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

it is sure to get him confirmed:
the republicans won't mind if he's a liar and the democrats won't mind if (i.e. probably hope that) he's unprincipled

Justin said...

That's possible, but if the Democrats are smart, they'll hope he's at least principled. Scalia has been much better than Thomas, to take the obvious contrast.

Anonymous said...

i was thinking more in terms of souter, who, by republican standards, is unprincipled.

Justin said...

Ah. I'd prefer to refer to someone as unprincipled when I take them to be objectively lacking in principle. So Thomas's general stance of "whatever the party dictates" doesn't count as a principle. By that standard, I'm not sure where Souter falls out.