Anonymous User wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 1:19 am
Anonymous User wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2023 8:43 pm
Anonymous User wrote: ↑Sat Aug 05, 2023 3:24 am
Anonymous User wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2023 1:50 am
In terms of raw intellectual horsepower -- who is the smartest conservative judge?
The name I've heard over and over again from several connected FedSoc types is Oldham
Oldham came to an HLS debate last year with Vermeule and Lessig and got dunked on. I find it hard to imagine he's the leading intellectual on the federal courts.
On Katsas: Not to be too much of a snob, but wasn't he outside the top 10% at HLS? I don't know him so could've been due to personal circumstances or his (totally legitimately) prioritizing the more important things in life. It does raise the question, however.
Agree to disagree on that debate performance.
In any event, just to give one example,
Oldham's Netchoice opinion was a tour de force, agree with it or not. Not saying he's the #1 intellect, but he's definitely no slouch. There's a reason he's near the top of most people's list to be the next conservative justice.
Oldham's
NetChoice opinion was ... long. But length does not make a "tour de force." The opinion contained perhaps the most shameful line I've read in an
inferior court opinion: “As always, we start with the original public meaning of the Constitution's text.” (Oldham went on to chastise the platforms for not briefing on the original meaning of the First Amendment.)
Seems that Oldham is writing for the job he wants, not the job he has. But to do his job, he should begin,
always, with what the Supreme Court has said the law is.
He also feigned ignorance throughout the opinion about how the platforms’ inability to censor others could restrict their rights to “say[] whatever they want to say in whatever way they want to say it.” I wonder if he would have been so befuddled about this if the law had prevented the platforms from taking down porn posted to their sites.
I'm a conservative, not a liberal here to take swipes at conservative judges. This just isn't the kind of opinion conservatives should be proud of.