For the Supreme Court? Al Gore
Posted at: 2009-05-02 09:38:18.0
Author: Michael Sean Winters

The news of Justice David Souter’s retirement adds another challenging task
to President Obama’s already full plate. There is any number of qualified
candidates so the challenge is merely a political one.

Everyone seems to think Obama will choose a woman. I agree that women often
bring a different perspective to life and its conundrums, and so would
likely bring a different perspective to the application of law. The same
holds true for picking a Latino or a Latina, which would place the first
Hispanic on the Court. Of course, Obama has no idea how many more
appointments he may make so the temptation to appoint someone he really
trusts, like Gov. Devall Patrick, must be strong. Whomever he picks must, of
course, be liberal enough to satisfy his base without being so left of
center as to alter Obama’s carefully crafted image as a centrist in
governing.

All of these considerations have candidates appropriate to the political
dynamics noted above. But there is one person who selection transcends all
the different classifications and whose selection would – instantly –
galvanize the entire Democratic Party because it would entail the righting
of an injustice that was simultaneously specific and so egregious as to
appear cosmic. President Obama should nominate Al Gore to the Court. The
choice would be electrifying.

Some will object that Mr. Gore is not even a lawyer, which is true. But,
there is a long tradition of having those with legislative or executive
experience on the Court, a tradition that has fallen by the wayside as
Presidents have sought nominees with little or no paper trail. Earl Warren
was a lawyer, and had served as attorney general of California, but it was
his stature as a three-term Governor who was nominated by both parties for
the job that earned him the nod for the Court in 1953.

Mr. Gore spent sixteen years in Congress making laws, serving in both the
House and Senate. He served eight years in the executive branch enforcing
laws. All this without a law degree.

Ultimately, the case for a Gore appointment is simple. Conservative jurists
justify their rulings by appealing to abstract principles such as "strict
construction" or "original intent of the Founders" this last despite the
fact that even a modicum of historical familiarity with the Founding shows
that the Founders had many and varied intentions for the Constitution they
crafted. Liberal jurists care about the real world effects of a law. No one
has been the object of both conservative hypocrisy (whither states rights?)
and a very nasty real world application of the law in the way Al Gore was in
Bush v. Gore.

I suspect President Obama will have other nominations by which he can bring
other perspectives to the High Court’s proceedings. Mr. Gore might not even
desire the appointment. But, in one stroke, Obama could avoid any
intra-party grumblings and show to all the world that injustice can be
rectified.

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Al Gore has no law degree? But does he have a high school graduation
diploma? Can he do high school math?