That role is going to be crucial, because I want for the cases to be interesting. For instance, it’s not going to be of much use to America if the judges are asked to rule on whether or not someone like Kim Jong-Il, or Satan, or Mel Gibson, is an asshole. We know they’re assholes. We want the cases to be difficult to decide, and subtle. I want nuanced precedents to be set: I believe Charles Krauthammer is generally an asshole, but what is the specific offense? Is it the fact that he’s a psychiatrist repeatedly offering, in print, clinical psychiatric diagnoses of people he doesn’t know (and almost always after a phrase like,” I’m a psychiatrist. I don’t usually practice on camera, but…”)? Is it the whole “pampered upper-middle-class white conservative continually wallowing in cultural victimhood” schtick? Or is it just that lipless Beltway-Voldemort face of his?
Maybe Taibbi is jealous because Dr. K. has better hair?