Giving
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer an unusual evening newscast
platform to plug a book, on Monday's NBC Nightly News anchor Brian
Williams brought viewers back to the Left's ten-year-old grudge, cuing
up Breyer to agree: "Do you think Bush v Gore hurt the credibility of the modern court?" Breyer replied with a simple "yes" and Williams suggested: "Irreparably?" "No," Breyer said in rejecting Williams' overwrought premise, so Williams pressed: "For how long?"
Williams introduced the September 13 segment by marveling:
We can't remember a sitting justice on the U.S. Supreme Court ever stopping by our studios here, but it happened today. We spent some time with Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Clinton and residing on the liberal side of the court. Justice Breyer is out with a new book today. It's about how the court works, including mistakes the court has made over the years. I started out by asking Justice Breyer, given his love of the Supreme Court, if he's concerned that just one percent of those Americans polled, in a recent survey, knew his name?
That book: Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View [1].
The second topic raised by Williams:
WILLIAMS: Do you think Bush v Gore hurt the credibility of the modern court? BREYER: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Irreparably?
BREYER: No.
WILLIAMS: For how long?
BREYER: I don't know. That's up to historians. I thought that the decision - I was in dissent. I obviously thought the majority was wrong. But I've heard Harry Reid, I heard him say this, and I agree with it completely, he said the most remarkable thing about that case, Bush versus Gore, is something hardly anyone remarks. And that remarkable thing is even though more than half the public strongly disagreed with it, thought it was really wrong, they followed it. And the alternative, using guns, having revolutions in the street, is a worse alternative.
WILLIAMS: To a new area, academic social elitism on the court. What would be your view of bringing in - Presidents appointing justices who went to a couple of state law schools?
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here [2] to follow him on Twitter.