Another Free Pass For Breyer

Jeffrey Toobin has a long paen to the virtues (sometimes passive, sometimes not) of Justice Breyer in the New Yorker.

Toobin, like Jeffrey Rosen (discussed in Breyer Restraint), does not notice the inconsistencey between Breyer’s belief that the First Amendment should bar school vouchers, not because of its text or the intent of its framers, etc., but because of the potential they create for “social conflict,” and his fervent support of racial preferences, despite the clear and present racial and ethnic conflict they both cause and exacerbate. Such is “pragmatism” in action.

Still, Toobin makes clear, as have others, that Justice Breyer is a smart and appealing man. It’s too bad that so many of today’s liberals who generally agree with him fail to emulate his approach to politics and law (especially since so many of these followers fail to see the distinction) as outlined to Toobin:

“You have to assume good faith, even on the part of people with whom you disagree,” he told me. “If you don’t assume good faith, it makes matters personal, and it makes it harder to reach a good result and, in my experience, it normally isn’t even true. People do act in good faith. The best clue to what a person thinks is what he says.”

If even, say, 20% of liberals today approached Republicans, conservatives, and President Bush in that spirit, out political culture would be about 100% healthier than it is now.