The Week

The Fun City Burger Shop, at Second Avenue and 122nd Street, has gone out of business.

Speaking on the need for civility in this country, Chief Justice Warren Burger took a swipe at “a tiny fragment of reckless, irresponsible lawyers” some few of whom, he said, “seem bent on destroying the system.” He could have mentioned William Kunstler by name but it really wasn’t necessary: the speech was obviously about him and his cohorts and their ugly practice of the law of disruption and violence. Our adversary system grew out of the ritualized battle of another time, a time which, as they reintroduce battling and brawling into the courtroom, the Kunstlers would seem to prefer. Kunstler is not the only disruptive force, but he is a symbol, perhaps the symbol, of the inability or unwillingness (so far) of our judicial system, including bar associations, to maintain the standards of which the Chief Justice spoke. And though Kunstler is only one man, his disbarment as the symbol of incivility (urged last summer, during the campaign, by James Buckley) would be a symbolic act which would profit the judicial system and the nation.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

The Fun City Burger Shop, at Second Avenue and 122nd Street, has gone out of business.

Speaking on the need for civility in this country, Chief Justice Warren Burger took a swipe at “a tiny fragment of reckless, irresponsible lawyers” some few of whom, he said, “seem bent on destroying the system.” He could have mentioned William Kunstler by name but it really wasn’t necessary: the speech was obviously about him and his cohorts and their ugly practice of the law of disruption and violence. Our adversary system grew out of the ritualized battle of another time, a time which, as they reintroduce battling and brawling into the courtroom, the Kunstlers would seem to prefer. Kunstler is not the only disruptive force, but he is a symbol, perhaps the symbol, of the inability or unwillingness (so far) of our judicial system, including bar associations, to maintain the standards of which the Chief Justice spoke. And though Kunstler is only one man, his disbarment as the symbol of incivility (urged last summer, during the campaign, by James Buckley) would be a symbolic act which would profit the judicial system and the nation.