Legal Commentary

So, it looks as if Justice Souter will be retiring.  That's a shame, but of course it will make life very interesting for those of us in the legal academy who will spend endless hours thinking about and debating who should be/will be the next Supreme Court justice.  We will all have our official hopes and predictions, whether they are Diane Wood or Elena Kagan or Jerry Springer or whomever, but let's be honest with ourselves: aren't we all sort of secretly hoping and thinking that maybe, just possibly, with a little luck, we could be the next justice?  Isn't it at least possible that our friend who works in the Justice Department will make an offhand mention of our name to someone "at a higher paygrade," and that person will in turn become intrigued by the possibility of this stealth choice and do some research into our scholarship and records of past service and decide that yes, indeed, this obscure law professor from wherever would make the perfect nominee?  I think that maybe we all do this, but that we are all too humble, and modest, and "well brought up by our parents" to actually come out and say it.  Well, I say screw that: I'm endorsing myself for the next justice of the Supreme Court.  And here's why.

For one thing, since I'm not a federal judge and have only written enough scholarship to barely get tenure, I don't have a long paper trail and therefore should be easily confirmable.  Yes, so I've written a short story about how I got caught making out in the girl's bathroom at a seventh grade dance, but since when do sexual improprieties such as this render one unfit for the bench?  Second, while I may be smart enough to write a decent Supreme Court opinion, I'm not too smart that I would write opinions that nobody could understand.  See, that's the problem with all the hoity toity candidates.  They all have "subtle" and "sophisticated" views of the law and see "connections" between various areas of law that seem unconnected.  I don't see those things.  And therefore my opinions will be straightforward and easy to understand and, moreover, will be fundamentally unsound at anything beyond a purely superficial level, which will in turn give legal academics a lot to gripe about and critical law review articles to write, which will be fine by me since who the hell cares, I'm a Supreme Court justice.  Finally, since I'm on facebook, I will be able to open the process up far more than it is now, as I comment on pending cases in my daily status reports.  Hell, I might even be convinced to tweet from the bench during oral argument.

So, President Obama, what do you think?  Call me.  (now I better write down the area code for Washington DC so I can look at caller ID and know when he's on the phone).