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September 5, 2005
Concern for the Issues, Anti-professionalism, or Both
Crooks and Liars calls our attention to a new CBS Poll that updates earlier polls on how the public sees the relative importance of various factors in selecting a Justice for the Supreme Court. The poll was released today taken before Roberts was nominated to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Here are the numbers that interest me.
| Now | Last Month | Thomas-1991 | Bork-1987 | |
| Legal Qualifications only | 33% | 46% | 39% | 39% |
| Positions on Issues only | 57% | 46% | 49% | 52% |
Like many, I guess that I am pleased that the public thinks the nominee's positions of various issues is of increasing importance but I am concerned that legal qualifications remain well below 50%. Now I know those who responded to this poll were not allowed very much nuance in their answers: only "this" or only "that." I often refuse to answer such questions and tell the person taking the poll how I would prefer that the question was raised. Therefore, many of my answers get into the "can't say" category. And I'm not sure how one could design a poll that would give the nuance I am looking for, but I am concerned that professional qualifications show such low numbers.
The "issues" are those that are of importance to the person being polled. For example, those having strong feeling on either side of the abortion issue might think that the nominee's position on this issue was of paramount importance and that that had greater importance than legal qualifications. Of course, both would have exactly the opposite judgment on whether or not the nominee was fit for the job. Other questions in the poll confirm this point.
Legal Qualifications, while not necessarily easy to define, are also not dependant on the controversies of the moment. Perhaps the respondents simply inferred that any nominee would be legally qualified.
However, I am concerned that these numbers may reflect a "do it yourself" mentality that gets inappropriately applied to so many areas of human endeavor. One other place where there is certainly an anti-professional attitude is in the personal opinions of much of the general population when it comes to assessing the work of professional biologists.
One of my worries is that as we have become more and more polarized on various issues, we have become increasingly indifferent to professional opinion. Or worse, we have seen professionals as pawns in a political chess game between proponents for and against various issues. But then, I guess that is one of the things Chris Mooney is trying to tell us in his new book.
By the way, when I have a plumbing problem I do try to fix it myself. And on the occasions when I failed, I called a plumber. What I don't do is try to tell the plumber to do it my way. Rather, I try to learn from his approach so I may be able to avoid calling him the next time I have a plumbing problem.
Oh yes, I also think that the scant twenty seven months that Judge Roberts has been a judge at any level should raise significant concerns about his legal qualifications to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of these United States. Independent of his training and background, I sure hope my plumber has been at it longer more that two and a quarter years.
Posted by Duane Smith at September 5, 2005 4:38 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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