Silly rabbit, working's for kids!

Remember all the hoopla about litmus tests every time the subject of federal judges comes up? Candidates and Senators climb all over each other to get to news cameras (even more so than usual) to out “non-partisan” each other about how they don’t have them, they simply want the best people appointed to the bench without regard to one’s party affiliation. Well this is Washington, and if you didn’t instinctively know that was a bunch of garbage, prepare your hungry brain because this story will give it some food for thought.

It seems the best person for the job is currently unemployed, or employed elsewhere, because Judge Charles Kornmann refused to step down as long as a Republican is in the White House. The problem isn’t that he’s not going to retire, he’s perfectly free not to, it’s just that he’s not going to be doing the job any more.

What does that mean? It means that the other two judges on the same court, both appointed by President Clinton (as was Judge Kornmann), have agreed to do most of his work so he won’t retire.

That’s a pretty sweet deal! For him, anyway. Not so much if you’re trying to get justice through the federal courts in South Dakota because your wait time will probably double what it normally would. But, hey, who cares? At least your case, when it ever makes it to that point, will be heard by judges with political agendas and not loyalty to anything as silly as the Constitution, or what’s best for the county.

Just so you don’t think Judge Kornmann is doing nothing productive all day, he is keeping his marriage together. He told the Associate Press this:

"One of the good things about the job is you don't have to retire unless you're senile. I think it's good for anyone to keep working, as long as you're healthy enough. That's a good fact about the job and you have an office to go so you're not driving your spouse nuts."

Isn’t that sweet? We taxpayers get to subsidize this guy having an office, not do his job, and not get on his wife’s nerves. It’s like we’re all his personal Dr. Phil.

I’m sure Senator Leahy will be holding hearings on how much of our tax dollars are wasted on this sort of political manure as soon as he’s done wasting our tax dollars to find out why 8 prosecutors, who could be fired by the President for any reason whatsoever, up to and including a dislike of their hairstyle, were fired.

Yeah, I’m going to start holding my breath now…