I am going to break an internal rule, and feel somewhat sorry for an Obama appointee. Yes, I know that it’s the man’s own fault for working for this administration; I also know that anybody who would be a top-level Obama administration official would waste no sympathy on me. But judging from this report, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli is apparently on a smooth glide path to losing in whole or in part the Supreme Court case over Arizona’s new immigration law. Apparently he’s not even convincing Justice Sotomayor; and that takes skill, in this administration*.
So why am I feeling sorry for the guy? Well, it’s not because Verrilli’s problem is that, as Ed Morrissey notes, he’s stuck using stupid arguments concocted for political purposes by an administration whose core competency is incompetence. That, again, is part for the course. No, why I feel sorry for Verrilli is because I am morally certain that if he loses both the Obamacare and immigration cases he will be blamed by everybody on the Left, because that’s much easier than dealing with, say, objective reality. And that will be sole blame: nobody else will have to take the fall. Progressives and liberals will tell themselves for the next two generations that they could have gotten what they wanted, only Verrilli failed them in the clutch. His name will be mud.
So what? – Well, the guy has a family. Imagine how they’re going to feel when their husband and father gets savagely attacked by progressive lunatics. For the rest of his life. Possibly even literally. All in all: that just ain’t right.
Yes, yes, I’m a big softie inside, really.
Moe Lane
*Kagan has recused herself from this one. How being Solicitor General when the original lawsuit was filed is somehow cause for recusal from an immigration case when being involved with Obamacare on the planning level is not is merely one of those little pseudo-clever rationalizations that make the rest of us love attorneys so much.
Heard an interesting take on the recusal thing this AM; Obamacare had been struck down by more than one court. They needed five votes to keep it. Thus, Kagan could not recuse. In the AZ case, the ninth circus has already struck it down. A 4-4 tie means the lower court ruling stands. They don’t need Kagan on this one and she gets to appear all thoughtful and wise.