…instead of electing judges, John J., why don’t we elect college professors? If there’s one thing that drives me absolutely bananas, it’s when people seriously advocate public-policy solutions that amount to a wholesale revision of the American political system — as though that were possible, doable, likely or desirable. Remember the whole “we should go to a Parliamentary system” craze in the early 1970s, especially beloved of The New Republic’s TRB at the time? Other ideas are greatly exciting to people on the Right but will never happen — i.e., triple the size of the House of Representatives, split California into three states, even (uh, oh, here comes the Derb reference) doing away with birthright citizenship. Yes, I know we live in a country whose composition and size are of a type that the Framers never envisioned. But hey, that’s life when you’re 229 years old.

By the way, for those of you following the dramatic tale of 13 month-old court watcher Shayna Podhoretz, she now informs me that if there are two available Supreme Court seats, Shayna would like Jay Jay the Jet Plane for O’Connor’s slot. Barney’s still her first choice, though.