The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Best Paragraph I’ve Read All Year

Posted on | June 27, 2012 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Randy Barnett’s retrospective on the ObamaCare decision buildup over at Volokh is awesome, but if you have only time for one paragraph, read this:

I especially want to thank Orin Kerr for his unstinting and unflagging skepticism from day one. I admit that, at times, I found his posts personally annoying, and my one regret over the past 2+ years of litigation is in sometimes letting my annoyance show. But this was entirely my problem, not his. His indefatigable resistance to every argument offered against the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate was essential to the growth and improvement of these arguments, especially in the first year of their development. He was a one-man moot court testing every claim, refusing to be brow beaten into concurring with a conclusion he simply could not accept. There is no question in my mind that our theories would not have developed as well as they did without his intellectual combativeness and persistence. If the challenge happens to succeed tomorrow, he will merit some share of the credit for that outcome.

It takes a mature person to admit that firm criticism was a big help, but it takes a full-on giant to deliver that firm criticism consistently.

Thank you, Orin Kerr, for your work here, and thank you, my own “Orin Kerr” figures the world over.

Category: Blogging

Comments

4 Responses to “Best Paragraph I’ve Read All Year”

  1. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 27th, 2012 @ 10:54 am

    Orin Kerr is a smart dude.  And he is right.  Regardless of what the Court does tomorrow.  

  2. Red
    June 27th, 2012 @ 12:16 pm

    ROFLMAO! Should have linked this bad boy too just for the theme song.

  3. smitty
    June 27th, 2012 @ 1:32 pm

    Did you mean this for one post down the page?

  4. Red
    June 27th, 2012 @ 3:10 pm

    I did….so DUMB!! GRRR. Thanks for catching the post-pas Smitty.