Agree to Disagree

When I recently published a column about then-Judge, now Supreme Court Justice Jackson, I knew there would likely be those who would take strenuous issue with my view, and that it might have been worthwhile to elaborate more. I’ll now take the opportunity to indeed expand on the central thesis underlying both that earlier column, as well as much of what I’ve written about our contemporary politics: That it’s essential for the welfare of America — and thus of the Jews for whom it has been an unparalleled safe haven — for its political factions to eschew the scorched-earth tactics and mutual demonization of recent years and instead return to disagreeing strenuously but amicably.

Since I want to use this space to clarify this main point, I won’t dwell on the specific charges leveled at this particular judicial candidate. In truth, however, some of those side points have their own relevance to us Jews. Take, for example, the apparently terrible sin Judge Jackson committed in having served, between stints as a corporate lawyer, as a public defender, i.e., a government-appointed defense attorney for the indigent.

Put aside the fact that, as conservative commentator Charles Cooke wrote in National Review, “There is nothing wrong with people who are willing to become solicitor generals and defend laws they dislike, or with people willing to become corporate lawyers and defend companies they disdain, or with people who are willing to become public defenders and defend clients they suspect are guilty.” Put aside, too, that the accuser, Senator Ted Cruz, himself was once solicitor general of Texas, where he prosecuted people based on laws he acknowledged were nonsensical. So he knows full well that public defenders are in the best American tradition; he’s not a hypocrite, but a gaslighter.

But more to the point, we Jews know well the evils of overzealous, or worse, patently unjust, prosecutions. Over the years, there have been many instances in which our community railed against the injustices of the American legal system, and now we’re to believe that it’s immoral to be assigned to represent those who may themselves be victims of such travesties? Or is it that the people who need public defenders tend to be poor, inner-city people, while Orthodox defendants facing persecuting prosecutors can count on their community to raise money to hire the best defense attorneys for them?