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One reader who came here through (the brilliant) How Appealling thought that my comments yesterday on Senator Kennedy's criticism of Bill Pryor were misplaced, because Pryor's "blatant hostility towards the paramount Constitutional authority under our system," as evidenced in Pryor's speech, should lead one to wonder whether or not he will be willing and able to "apply that body's view of the law." According to the reader, Kennedy was not attacking criticism of the Court as such, however, only criticism of this sort as it comes from the mouth of a federal judicial nominee.

It is odd for me to defend Pryor against Senator Kennedy; as I said yesterday, I don't think that Pryor should be confirmed, and I respect Senator Kennedy's political views and almost always share them. But I emphatically do not agree that it is inappropriate for people who run for and inhabit political offices (as Pryor was) to engage in sharp criticism of the court. In general, we should want people with political experience to serve on the federal bench; in fact, liberals in particular should want this, to the extent that separation of powers and federalism issues (as well as other issues in which courts have to examine and make assumptions about the work of legislatures) will probably be better understood by those who have had political experience. And if you engage in politics, sometimes you engage in political rhetoric, and sometimes that rhetoric can and should be sharply critical of courts. If you can use the word "octogenarian" in that context, then more power to you. I couldn't even remember how to spell it.

Many people have expressed a lament at the lack of political experience on the current Supreme Court, so this concern is by no means mine alone, although, given their interests, political scientists may be more susceptible to this particular vision than those who have legal training exclusively. And I imagine that there is some tension between this view and the view expressed eloquently by Lawrence Solum that the nominations process should be geared toward selecting what he calls "virtuous judges," although I don't want to stake a lot on this claim without further thought.

If the problem were with Bill Pryor's politics, that's fine. But I got the sense that the problem was that Bill Pryor had attacked the Supreme Court and thus now should be viewed suspiciously in his quest for a federal judgeship. At that level of generality, I think that he should not be viewed suspiciously. I understand that confirmation hearings are probably the most important area within which Senators can try to exert influence on federal judges and that lifetime appointments make the issue of future judicial character especially pressing. My pie-in-the-sky solution (perhaps) would be to get rid of lifetime appointments by instituting either fixed term or mandatory retirement ages. Absent that arrangement, I understand that Senator Kennedy wants to sound out Bill Pryor's past to understand his probable judicial temperament, but the cost of such a line of questionings may be to make it harder for people with political experience to sit on the federal bench.