Adulation of Judge Jones

The bloggers and commenters on Panda's Thumb and Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars have really gone off the deep end in heaping praise on Judge John E. Jones III, the lousy judge who decided the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. An article on Panda's Thumb describes Jones' speech to the Anti-Defamation League as "fantastic," and a comment under that article says, "Can someone nominate this guy for the Supreme Court?" And under an article titled "Judge Jones on Judicial Independence" in Ed Brayton's Dispatches, one commenter wrote, "H.E.R.O. -- look up the definition: it should be amended to include this man's picture," and another commenter wrote, "Damn, maybe we can get Judge Jones to run for President! I don't care which party either." Also, Ed Brayton wrote that critics of the Dover decision "are so driven by their anger at not getting the outcome they wanted that they have blinded themselves to one of the fundamental aspects of how Federal courts operate. " That statement may be true of Phyllis Schlafly, a principal target of Jones' speech. However, much of the criticism of the Dover decision has been directed not at the outcome but rather at how that outcome was reached, and Ed Brayton pretends that this kind of criticism does not exist.

Also, a straw man created by Ed Brayton in another article, "Prediction: Next Attack on Judge Jones", really takes the cake. Ed cited the following item from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Edward Madeira, a senior partner with Pepper Hamilton L.L.P., which represented Dover plaintiffs, described Jones as the perfect ambassador for a more visible judiciary.

"God bless him," said Madeira, who serves with Jones on a state panel on judicial independence. "He came out of the case with a real concern about the lack of understanding of the role of the judiciary and has become a person who spends time very effectively talking about it."

Ed then adds,

I predict that this will be used for the next wave of attacks on Jones from his shrill and often absurd opponents (Phyllis Schlaffly, Casey Luskin, Jonathan Witt, Michael Francisco, Seth Cooper, Joe Manzari, and others). They're going to scream about the alleged conflict of interest because Jones serves on a judicial independence panel with a partner in the law firm that represented the plaintiffs in Dover.

Good grief! Where's the "conflict of interest," Ed? How could Judge Jones be influenced by serving on the same such panel as this attorney? By your tight standards regarding conflict of interest, it would be virtually impossible for a judge and a local attorney to serve on the same such panel. Still, though, the attorney's praise of Judge Jones -- saying "God bless him" -- does seem indiscreet.

Here are my own opinions about Judge Jones:

"Judge Jones flunks history and philosophy as well as law and science"

"Judge Jones is hot speaker on the lecture circuit"

"Judge Jones the hypocrite"

Judge Jones gets dishonorable mention in the following article:

"NYC Mayor Bloomberg's commencement speech took swipe at ID"

My condemnations of Judge Jones' rulings in Kitzmiller v. Dover are on:

"Traipsing into breathtaking inanity -- absurd rulings in the Dover Intelligent Design case"