Nomination process necessary elsewhere

We’re about to embark on a political process that will produce sound bites from the left and the right (speaking politically, not dimensionally), drag a 50-year-old man through the proverbial mud and most likely do nothing to stop the appointment of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rarely do people leave these nomination processes as squeaky clean as when they entered, for it is the nature of partisan politics and the justice system in general.

Roberts may indeed be the most qualified person to fill the spot soon to be vacated by Sandra Day O’Connor, but that won’t make him completely immune to the process. Take any judge you want — Judge Roberts or Judge Judy. For each case a justice has presided over the years, there is one plaintiff and one defendant, and those two parties will later play the role of winner or loser.

The losers in Roberts’ courtrooms will no doubt get their chance to poke holes in his reasoning for their respective cases — rarely does a case end where somebody admits in defeat the judge’s decision was completely correct.

Combine this with the theory that past behavior dictates future behavior, and Roberts will have a lot to answer for. And he’ll do so in public. It sounds like a great system to me, though it has its inherent flaws, and makes me wish we could apply this process to other facets of our life.

The basketball magazine SLAM would have loved to apply this process to the 10 men who are starting head coaching tenures with NBA teams, and last Thursday posed sample questions for each of the coaches.

I won’t get into those questions because I assume not all of my readers have a fluent knowledge of the NBA. Instead, I’ll ask the questions from other areas of life that I would like answered:

“Mr. Schneider, may we call you Rob? OK, Rob, let’s get this straight. You’re asking people to pay $8 to see ‘Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo’ this summer. This is a two part question, really. Didn’t we say all we needed to in ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,’ and why must we go European?”

Are you more of a reader? Try out a hearing like this.

“Bernard Goldberg, you have a new book out for roughly $20 called ‘100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is No. 37),’ where you spend much of your time discussing how pop culture is weakening us. By adding Franken’s name to the cover of your book, aren’t you using his name to generate more sales of your book, thereby endorsing the culture while simultaneously lambasting it for the purpose of increasing your wealth?”

And it doesn’t just work with pop culture. It works with everyday life.

“Mr. Unnamed Motorist, we have determined that you did willingly cut off our witness, Kevin Wilson, the other day in traffic. We have also learned that your vehicular maneuver, which nearly caused an accident that day, was done while en route to the same place as the witness. When you arrived at your parking spot five seconds before Wilson arrived at his, did you consider that time to be worth the price of driving so inconsiderately?”

I’m sure you could use a congressional confirmation hearing for what ails you as well. Until that is a reality, we’ll just have to dream — and know when to honk our horns.