Are You Friggin Kidding Me?

“[The appointment of Justice Kennedy to the Supreme Court] turned out to be successful beyond Reagan's wildest dreams. … Kennedy was exactly what Reagan thought – ‘a true conservative.’” – David Broder, Washington Post (7/6/08)Broder’s thesis is that putting Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court was successful beyond Reagan's wildest dreams because Kennedy “has turned out to be its single most influential member.” Is Mr. Broder unaware that it’s Kennedy’s Court precisely because he is not a true conservative? Were he one, he would be no more influential than the four more conservative Justices. As Broder notes, third-choice “Kennedy is an accident of history” – an accident that would not have happened, I might add, if the Clinton / Obama standard for judging past marijuana use had been in effect in 1987.