Tuesday, June 06, 2006

 

Making Amends

Red State Rabble has been engaged of late in a period of deep introspection. After thinking things over, we find to our surprise that we've been rather unfair to the Discovery Institute. RSR, it seems to us now, has always been quick to condemn, but sparing -- far, far too sparing -- in our praise. We have never, ever, so far as we can determine, given them proper credit for all the good they do.

To make amends for RSR's inexcusable failure to take a balanced view, we want to call attention to an important contribution that Discovery and its fellows have recently made.

As most readers will know, Discovery and its fellows -- particularly William Dembski -- were elated that the Dover intelligent design case would be heard by a good Republican judge. Jones, it seemed, had all the right qualifications: Bush appointee, assistant scoutmaster, Tom Ridge protégé. What more could you want?

Dembski bet a bottle of scotch on the outcome.

When the ruling came down, however, the scales immediately fell -- some would say were ripped -- from their eyes. It would be an understatement to say they came away from the trial deeply disillusioned.

Not much time passed before Discovery's Evolution News and Views blog used the harshest epithet in the fundamentalist dictionary on Judge John Jones. He was, they said, an "activist judge.

According to Amy Worden of The Philadelphia Inquirer, most judges are loath to go public about their cases at all, let alone respond to their critics, but Jones - angered by accusations that he had betrayed the conservative cause with his ruling, and disturbed by the growing number of politically motivated attacks on judges in general - has come out from his chambers swinging.

This is a good thing. We can't think of anyone we'd rather have defending judges from politically motivated attacks than Judge Jones, and we like to give full credit where credit is due -- to our friends at the Discovery Institute.

From Red State Rabble, you have our heartfelt thanks!

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