Imagine if the dining section of the Washington Post had an editorial page. And on that page, they weighed in on both the quality of restaurants, but also the hiring processes of kitchens. And let's assume, finally, that the page repeatedly endorsed cooks who promised to make dishes the Washington Post didn't like, and then the Post repeatedly wrote editorials condemning those dishes, and the direction of the restaurant, and the state of dining today. Wouldn't that seem...weird?
And yet, it would almost be less weird were the stakes actually confined to a satisfying meal, rather than the direction of the Supreme Court:
Media Matters notes a curious trend. The Washington Post endorsed the confirmation of John Roberts. The Washington Post endorsed the confirmation of Samuel Alito. Now, The Washington Post has gone an excoriated the recent spate of 5-4 decisions in which Roberts and Alito, predictably, joined with fellow conservatives William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas to do the sort of things that conservative judges do.
One wishes, at this point, that the Post would simply endorse the decisions as well. If the Post wants to become conservative on judicial issues, the way it's become conservative on foreign policy issues then it is, of course, free to do so. But hewing to a liberal line when it doesn't matter only adds a veneer of credibility when they put forward conservative views on question that do matter -- who should and who should not be confirmed.
