BOB NOVAK

If you looked at Novak's editorial in WaPo on Monday, as I did, you may have reacted in the same way as this perceptive reader. I especially liked the line from Novak that is highlighted in the letter, the line decrying the

unprecedented filibuster campaign to prevent a sitting president from selecting his own judiciary (Emphasis added)

Slip of the pen? Sense of Republican entitlement? Commitment to the imperial presidency? Woeful constitutional ignorance? Conscious distortion? You decide.

MORE: I've struck out twice this week, according to Jim at OTB. And a reader e-mailed me to object of the use of the phrase "Republican entitlement" rather than "partisan entitlement." The more narrow objection may be fair, although I never heard anyone describe Clinton's appointments as establishing "his judiciary." I'm not saying that Presidents shouldn't choose judges they like, as Jim implies. What I am saying is that the move to the use of the possessive is more than a mere semantic choice. The President certainly has a right to appoint [er, should read, "nominate"] judges, but he has no right to see any of those judges actually serve (unless he makes recess appointments). Senators can kill all the nominations if they want. That's hardly a basis for secure possession. More seriously, it's "our judiciary," not the President's, and thank God for that.

MORE: The aforementioned reader, revealed, here, as my old friend Jack Gould! [The link may have been premature. . .sorry!]