Speaking of hopeless geeks, check the legal beagles

by Smitty

In my mis-spent youth, I used to think that there was a direct relationship between wisdom and rank. By the time you make Admiral, you must be admirable.

Later I realized that 'everything is easy, when you know how to do it'.

Currently, I'm realizing that 'most things that are apparently hard have been obfuscated by somebody with a business model to protect'.

The U.S. Constitution, as written and amended, is one of those things that isn't terribly magical. Read Amar's book. My takeaway is that the more Progressive your read of the Constitution, the less your feet are touching bottom. If the legal theories can't be explained in a straightforward way to a child, then there may be too much abstraction afoot.

In light of the recent Constitutional flap about Obamacare, Volokh has been a good read, up to this point. But I fear they may have blown a gasket over there discussing Orin Kerr's post "The Myth of an Expert Consensus on the Constitutionality of Anything":

Richard Epstein says:
Orin’s post is unconstitutional.

December 23, 2009, 7:24 pm

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Orin Kerr says:
Richard Epstein is unconstitutional. So there!

December 23, 2009, 7:26 pm

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Richard Epstein says:
Only if one accepts an untenably expansive view of the Commerce Clause can Orin be correct that my very existence is in gross violation of our Nation’s fundamental charter.

December 23, 2009, 7:33 pm

We will test these legal theories about ObamaCare in just over 10 months. The opinion from the American people will be a "No" with a four letter prefix starting with "F". My prediction for the Democratic Party is well stated by the G3, with a rare Satriani vocal:

(Satch sounds like Steve Miller, and has obviously spend more time honing the fingers than the vocal chords.)

The bummer about the election being this soon is that they'll not flip enough Democrats in the House to the Republican party for the Wicked Witch of the West to loser her position as speaker. Probably for the best. The schadenfreude backlash would leave a steep death toll amongst conservative political junkies.