How Hard We Make It

Clint Taylor, a friend of Peter Robinson's:

Although I may not share Hugh's degree of enthusiasm for the Miers nomination, I think he's dead on about judging not being rocket science. I might draw your attention to a Mr. Hamilton writing in Federalist 83.

Hamilton is disputing a misinterpretation of constitutional guarantees of a jury trial--that because the constitution only mentions them in regard to criminal trials, jury trials are therefore to be prohibited from civil trials: "With regard to civil causes, subtleties almost too contemptible for refutation have been employed to countenance the surmise that a thing which is only NOT PROVIDED FOR, is entirely ABOLISHED." Hamilton is thoroughly contemptuous of these "subtleties" of interpretation, and notes that "The rules of legal interpretation are rules of COMMONSENSE, adopted by the courts in the construction of the laws."

I don't expect that will change any minds on Miers, but I think it's a valuable explication of the importance of common sense in writing Constitutional law, as opposed to some sort of esoteric, gnostic penumbra-perceiving arcana imparted only to The Chosen Ones at the top-flight law schools.