Remember when your friend tried to fix you up with someone described as “having a nice personality?”  That should have been a tip off that you were not spending the evening with Miss America. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I do not care much about beauty contests.  I think we need to look deeper, especially when judging who would be a Supreme Court Justice.

When it comes to the Supreme Court, we need more than good looks.  Harriet Miers can relax on that point.  Many judges are elected because their names made it on the ballot, someone likes their Sir name, or it just so happened to be listed in the political party of our choice.  Most of us don’t have any idea what the judges we voted for believe. 

A jury is made up of what is touted to be twelve of our peers.  Not really, in the jury selection process, the opposing attorney has already eliminated the defendant's “peers.”  All I have to do is tell the prosecutor that “I am a minister,” and I am voted off the island and asked to leave the tribal counsel area immediately. 

Judges are not perfect.  Just take a look at Samson.  A look at the Book of Judges should be enough to convince us that without God’s help and grace we would only rule over ruins, when “every man does that which is right in his own eyes.”  Solomon was a judge and demonstrated wisdom when he asked for a sword, (I’m not so sure when it comes to his 700 wives and 300 hundred concubines).  Solomon would never make it through our confirmation hearings. 

There are no Solomons around these days anyway.  A judge should be impartial.  Justice is supposed to be blind.  I have no problem with “blind.”  It’s the “dumb” part that make us a little nervous.  Justice is not supposed to be “dumb.”  There are two ways to be “dumb.”  The first is not to say anything, not to speak, to be silent.  Supreme Court nominees are experts with this during Congressional hearings.  Questions about, “What do you believe about this?” or “What do you believe about that,” are always met with evasion, and that is the same as dumbness.  It is the other “dumb” that worries me.    

America has a date with destiny.  I hope its better than some of the “blind dates” I've had.  The President didn’t call me before the Iraq thing. Guess I'm not on his speed dial.   As a Vietnam Veteran, I might have given him a “heads up” about armies that “melt-away” and the malignancy of military insurgencies.  I didn’t get a call before the Supreme Court nomination.  From what I read, no one else did either.  Let’s pray for our President. 

                                                                                                              id