Taylor argues that Brown is a judicial activist of the Right and asks, “Where is the conservative outrage? I don’t think all his evidence is on point–one can regard the New Deal as a “socialist revolution,” as she does, without believing that it’s the role of Supreme Court justices to undo it–but I agree with his basic conclusion.

I wrote something similar back in December 2003 for NR: “Republicans, and their conservative allies, have been willing to make . . . lame arguments to rescue even nominees whose jurisprudence is questionable. Janice Rogers Brown, one of Bush’s nominees has argued that there is properly ‘an extra-constitutional dimension to constitutional law.’ She has said that judges should be willing to invoke a ‘higher law’ than the Constitution. She has said that judicial activism is not troubling per se; what matters is the ‘worldview’ of the judicial activist. If a liberal nominee to the courts said similar things, conservatives would make quick work of her.”