The Ghost Of Earl Warren

Before there was St. Dutch — the Dumbo fount of all Dumbo wisdom — there was Ike. Yesterday, the Great Commager taught us that President Dwight Eisenhower mightily regretted his 1953 appointment of Governor Earl Warren (R-CA) as Chief Justice of the United States of America. A year later, the "Warren Court" deposited Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as a partial repayment for centuries of injustice in this land. Ike resented (non-judge) Earl Warren and his leadership of the Court and Ike's response was to pronounce the backlash in the form of the "Nobody should be a Supreme Court Justice who hasn't been a judge" mantra that the Dumbos of 2010 will fling at Justice-designate Elena Kagan.

Truth be known, 36% of the men appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States had no prior experience as judges at any level (of the 40 non-judges, 10 were appointed Chief Justice of the United States of America and 30 were named Associate Justices). Here is a list of the incompetent wretches:

Chief Justices—Term—President Making Appointment—Prior Position
John Jay—(1789-1798)—Washington—Ambassador
John Marshall—(1801-1835)—Adams—Secretary of State
Roger Taney—(1836-1864)—Jackson—Secretary of the Treasury
Salmon Chase—(1864-1873)—Lincoln—Secretary of the Treasury
Morrison Waite—(1873-1888)—Grant—Pres., OH Con. Convention
Melville Fuller—(1888-1910)—Cleveland—Lawyer
Charles Hughes—(1930-1941)—Hoover—US delegate, The Hague
Harlan Stone—(1941-1946)—Roosevelt, F—Associate Justice, SCOTUS*
Earl Warren—(1953-1969)—Eisenhower—Governor, California
William H. Rehnquist—(1986-2005)—Reagan—Associate Justice, SCOTUS**

Associate Justices
James Wilson—(1789-1798)—Washington—Member, Continental Congress
Bushrod Washington—(1799-1829)—Adams—Lawyer
Joseph Story—(1812-1845)—Madison—Speaker, MA Lower House
Henry Baldwin—(1830-1844)—Jackson—Lawyer
John McKinley—(1838-1852)—Van Buren—House of Representatives
Benjamin Curtis—(1851-1857)—Fillmore—MA State Legislature
John Campbell—(1853-1861)—Pierce—Lawyer
Nathan Clifford—(1858-1881)—Buchanan—Lawyer
Noah Swayne—(1862-1881)—Lincoln—Lawyer
Samuel Miller—(1862-1890)—Lincoln—Lawyer
Joseph Bradley—(1870-1892)—Grant—Lawyer
Lucius Lamar—(1888-1893)—Cleveland—Secretary of the Interior
George Shiras, Jr.—(1892-1903)—Harrison—Lawyer
William Henry Moody—(1906-1910)—Roosevelt, T—US Attorney General
James McReynolds—(1914-1941)—Wilson—US Attorney General
Louis Brandeis—(1916-1939)—Wilson—Lawyer
George Sutherland—(1922-1938)—Harding—US Consul at The Hague
Pierce Butler—(1923-1939)—Harding—Regent, University of Minnesota
[*Harlan Stone—(1925-1941)—Coolidge—US Attorney General]
Owen Roberts—(1930-1945—Hoover—Special US Attorney
Stanley Forman Reed—(1938-1945)—Roosevelt, F—Solicitor General
Felix Frankfurter—(1939-1962)—Roosevelt, F—Law Professor, Harvard
William O. Douglas—(1939-1974)—Roosevelt, F—Chairman of SEC
James Francis Byrnes—(1941-1942)—Roosevelt, F—Senator
Robert H. Jackson—(1941-1954)—Roosevelt, F—US Attorney General
Harold Hitz Burton—(1945-1958)—Truman—Senator
Tom C. Clark—(1949-1967)—Truman—US Attorney General
Byron White—(1962-1993)—Kennedy—Deputy Attorney General
Arthur J. Goldberg—(1962-1965)—Kennedy—Secretary of Labor
Abe Fortas—(1965-1969)—Johnson—Lawyer
[**William H. Rehnquist—(1972-1986)—Nixon—US Asst. Attorney General]
Lewis F. Powell—(1972-1987)—Nixon—Lawyer

So, there you have it. Elena Kagan, as non-judge, has a LOT of company among the 36% (more than ⅓!) of the appointees to the SCOTUS. If this is (fair & balanced) truth to Dumbos, so be it.

[x Austin Fishwrap]
"Point-Counterpoint"
By Ben Sargent

Click on image to enlarge. Ω

[Ben Sargent was the editorial cartoonist for the Austin American-Statesman (1974- 2009). After his retirement, Sargent has contributed cartoons on occasion to The Texas Observer as well as the Austin Fishwrap. Sargent was born in Amarillo, TX, into a newspaper family. He learned the printing trade from age twelve and started working for the local daily as a proof runner at fourteen. He attended Amarillo College and received a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. Sargent won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1982. He has also received awards from Women in Communications, Inc., Common Cause of Texas, and Cox Newspapers. He is the author of Texas Statehouse Blues (1980) and Big Brother Blues (1984).]

Copyright © 2010 Ben Sargent/Austin American-Statesman

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