Judging the judges

A question that bears looking into is whether a career in politics inevitably turns people into hypocrites or whether hypocrites are born, not made, and are simply drawn to the field the way that steel shavings are drawn to a magnet.

Being a conservative, naturally I hold Democrats in far lower regard than I do Republicans. But, overall, I don't think that politicians of any stripe should be trusted anywhere near a live microphone or anybody's wallet. In fact, I find most people's infatuation with office holders completely infantile and unseemly, and on a par with an adolescent girl's crush on some slack-jawed rock star.

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After all, what does a pol do that is so admirable? He spends most of his waking hours shaking down friends and strangers for campaign funds so that he can remain in office ... and continue shaking down friends and strangers for campaign funds.

In those odd moments when he takes a break from lining his own coffers, his work consists in coming up with novel and foolish ways to spend our tax dollars. And, stoopnagels that we are, we applaud him as if he'd just written a personal check!

Up to now, I've merely been generalizing about politicians as a group. But, for sheer unadulterated hypocrisy, you can't beat the left-wing members of the U.S. Senate, and don't even think about trying. You'd only hurt yourself.

As loathsome as they are on any given day, they rise to truly unimaginable heights on those occasions when they're sitting in judgment of a prospective jurist. Consider, for instance, the back alley mugging they administered to Judge Charles Pickering, a man who had faced down the Ku Klux Klan, condemning him as a racist, of all things, thus ensuring that this gallant gentleman would never be allowed to sit on the bench beside Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Well, perhaps there was an upside, after all, for Judge Pickering.

As I envision the upcoming assault faced by John Roberts, by all accounts a decent man in both his public and private lives, I find myself wondering how such fellows as Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy would deal with judicial nominees carting around their own respective baggage.

Can't you just imagine the bloodletting that would occur if President Bush dared nominate a judge who, like Sen. Byrd, had been a member in good standing of the Klan?

Better yet, can't you picture the grilling that Kennedy, the swizzle-stick kid himself, would give a candidate who had earned a well-deserved reputation as a college cheat, a sot and a womanizer?

Finally, can't you envision the senior senator from Massachusetts leaning forward in his chair, peering down at the judicial wannabe over those glasses he always wears to such events, and saying in that overbearing voice that can curdle milk: "How dare you even think about sitting on the highest court in the land? Who are you to sit in judgment of any man? Does the name Mary Jo Kopechne not ring any bells for you? It surely does for me, sir. It surely does for me."