At work today I jotted down a few notes to form the basis of my next post. After getting home I quickly perused a few of my favorite blogs and decided to go over to see if Thomas Sowell had posted anything new on Townhall.com. Well, he had and it seems he has written my post for me. With pleasure I will endeavor to write mine. When my thinking parallels that of Dr. Sowell, I know that I’m doing something right.

The hullabaloo over President Bush’s nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court is just about to begin. We will all be treated to accusations and insinuations that Roberts deserves to be seated near the right hand of God or that he is Satan himself, as well as everything in between. Most Democrats will have ‘serious reservations’ while most Republicans will laud his ‘judicial integrity’. The moderates and mavericks will say absolutely nothing but in very erudite and thoughtful ways. (Someone recently has suggested that in all cases each Senator should be allowed two votes. In that way the mods and mavs can vote both ways and save themselves from serious emotional trauma or crotch injury while trying to ride the fence.)

I know very little about Judge Roberts. I assume that he is well qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. He has been nominated by the sitting president. Unless he is found with a dead girl or live boy... well, these days... a dead girl anyway, he should take his seat on the court. But possibly since the inquisition of Robert Bork, things have changed– something is missing. Just a small matter, really; only the Constitution.

During his committee hearing, the only thing that really should be discerned about any nominee’s position is whether he has interests in a certain desired outcome or if he will judge according to the constitutional blueprint. Religious preferences, sexual orientation, or other personal choice stances really don’t matter if the judge will rule under the auspices of the Constitution. (In our lifetimes such matters have become complicated by flagrant expansions of the general welfare clause, interstate commerce, and privacy rights.) Personal agendas are another matter, however. Preconceived agendas elevate a justice upon Mt. Olympus to rule over the affairs of mortal men with a god-like omnipotence and most self-assuredly, a superior omniscience. Although not technically omnipresent, we are stuck with their rule perhaps ‘til death do us part’.

In building a house one would want the contractor to build according to the chosen architect’s blueprints. No one would appreciate having to try to make a home and to raise a family in a sewage treatment plant, no matter how perfectly constructed. (Perhaps excepting those who would require others live their lives according to their own version of ‘the public good’.)

On the other hand, the Constitution is intended to be the sewage treatment plant. It was written to filter the federally fermented fecal formations from ‘sea to shining sea’. Mount Olympus was never supposed to be one among ‘the purple mountains’ majesty’.

Senate: Approve Judge Roberts for the Supreme Court nomination and wash your own hands after defecating and don’t forget to flush.