There’s a terrific column today in the New York Daily News by Robert Smith, judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, from 2004 to 2015, and father of BuzzFeed impresario Ben Smith. (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus’s long and smart blog post.)
Judge Smith is refreshingly frank about the role of judges and the bogus legal reasoning (“totally unconvincing”) of the 9th Circuit decision affirming the blocking of President Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. He makes the point that Trump, far from undermining the judiciary, is inadvertently enhancing its power.
Judge Smith’s concluding paragraphs:
“The courts don’t trust this President to make intelligent, or even honest, decisions about national security, or pretty much anything else. I don’t either.
“But as long as he’s not breaking the law (and I don’t think he is, this time), the courts shouldn’t try to rescue us. They can’t, unless they take over the government, and start deciding questions like how many Syrian refugees to let in. They might try to do that — as I said, they have big egos. But if they do, I predict they’ll screw things up even worse than Trump will.”
