Tom Goldstein: you asked for it
This blog is inspired both by "The Anti-Becker-Posner Blog," recently launched by "The Crit Cowboy," and by Tom Goldstein's recent statement on SCOTUSBlog's sister blog, The Supreme Court Nomination Blog, that Howard Bashman of "How Appealing" raised "a valid concern" in suggesting it might be unwise for a law firm such as his, which focuses on U.S. Supreme Court litigation, to attempt a "neutral and informational blog" on Supreme Court nominations which might "ruffle many feathers." In so doing, Bashman credited a comment on Goldstein's blog suggesting that Goldstein's recent post ranking various prospective U.S. Supreme Court nominees from least to most controversial might create problems.
The premise of this blog is that it is indeed problematic for Supreme Court specialists such as Goldstein and his co-bloggers to venture into this highly politicized territory at the same time they are charged with representing clients before the Court. Their decision to take this step warrants closely scrutinizing past, present, and future posts on both SCOTUSblog and on its sister blog on Supreme Court nominations.
Apart from the intrinsic merit of close scrutiny of influential blogs such as these, such scrutiny may be particularly valuable as it bears on the credibility of Goldstein and his co-bloggers in running what are claimed to be neutral and informative blogs which provide "an objective take" on relevant matters, as Goldstein puts it. If past, present, or future blog posts supply evidence of a lack of objectivity on the part of Goldstein and his co-bloggers, that would be relevant in assessing the credibility of their current effort to provide objective coverage of Supreme Court nomination matters.
With Tom Goldstein having invited close scrutiny of these blogs by claiming, despite considerable evidence to the contrary (as this blog will attempt to show), that they represent an "objective take" on relevant matters, and by going forward with the Surpreme Court nominations blog despite what Goldstein admits are "valid concerns" articulated by Bashman and the commentator, a blog such as this one seems amply justified. In effect, Tom Goldstein has asked for this blog. And even if this blog is not justified by anything Goldstein and his co-bloggers have done, it nonetheless will have whatever substantive value its posts collectively carry.
posted by Unknown at 5:46 PM
5 Comments:
A very interesting concept in the Anti-blogs.
I'll find this to be an interesting companion to compare and contrast to SCOTUSblog.
Yes, the “anti-blog” seems like a new thing. For years there have been “_____sucks.com” websites attacking mostly companies. And there are a few blogs which ape real blogs, like “How Appalling." But until the anti-Posner blog, and this one, I hadn’t heard of a blog set up just to attack another blog. But maybe it’s not new, and I’ve just not heard of it before. Regardless, I’m doubtful either of these "anti-blogs" will be much of interest. Posner and Goldstein seem actually to have something substantive to say that readers want to read, presumably because they’re knowledgeable and talented about what they’re blogging about. Maybe some unknown geniuses are behind these blogs and they’ll be saying lots of important and interesting things which readers of the blogs they attack will be eager to read. But I doubt it. Somehow it strikes me as unlikely that unknown geniuses would bother with this sort of thing. More the kind of thing a loser-wannabe-a-star blogger would try, to feed off the success of a legitimate blog.
Who are you?
Why haven't you written anything substantive?
Hey everybody, be sure to click on the blogger profile to find out more about "The Conservative Cowboy," our erstwhile blogger. It's very thorough.
Heck, I'll save y'all the trouble. We learn our blogger is: (1) male, and (2) in the field of law. What a surprise! Couldn't have guessed in a million years.
Also, there's an audio clip of a country song that sounds like the one Jake and Elwood sang in the "Blues Brothers." Nice taste in music, Cowboy! I'm sure everyone will take you real, real, seriously.
Good luck with your blogging endeavors. Boy, 270 visitors to your blog so far, in a couple of days. That's maybe as many as SCOTUSblog gets in an hour. I'm sure they're real, real, scared.
I agree with Bob and ex-parodist that this looks like a personal attack on Tom Goldstein. You don't do a very good job of disgiusing it. As to the "anonymous" (catchy name) lead off commentator, I think you're trying to revive the already discredited episode involving various people at the National Review (ones I no longer respect as much as I once did) in which they called Goldstein a bunch of bad names in retaliation for him pointing out errors in the hack job they tried to do on Larry Tribe for supposed distortions in an essay that dealt with the death of his father. See here. And here. and here. The hack job was disrespectful enough, but they managed to go even lower in their exchange with Goldstein. I guess you're proud to be in such good company.
At least the National Review people had the guts to identify themselves and take the lumps they were due. To be clear, I don't think you're coordinating with them. They have real jobs and better things to do. I would be surprised if many people have much interest in this sort of thing.
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