What the-?

Following the trail of crumbs from Powerline to Carol Platt Liebau to Hugh Hewitt, it's hard to see what the hubub is here.

Hugh Hewitt puts forth his opinion of who the best Supreme Court nominees are for Bush to pick, and settles on Michael Luttig, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Hugh writes:

Judge Luttig has been on the bench the longest, and represents the biggest target as a result, as well as the almost certain objection that the unscrupulous left will at first whisper and then shout and which should be put out by the White House early and knocked down hard: Since Judge Luttig's father was a murder victim, he ought not to serve on the highest court in the land that deals with death penalty issues all the time.

The article hails from 1996 and seems more about lawyers representing death penalty convicts asking whether Luttig should rule on their cases. It has nothing to do with Democrats attempting to keep him off the court.

Now I don't fault Hugh, even though I frequently disagree with him, because he presents the article on Lutting as a warning to the White House. I do object to the "unscrupulous left" comment, because it is, in my opinion, a legitimate question to ask of a Supreme Court judge. Anything in their past they may affect future rulings should be examined. No bias, no problem.

However once it gets to Carol Platt Liebau, she is already referring to it as one of "the most disgraceful arguments to be hurled at any potential Supreme Court Justice." Except no one is hurling anything at him at this point. It's Hugh's wild speculation. Nine years ago lawyers with clients appearing before him suggested potential conflict. But no one today has argued anything at this point.

Then the boys at Powerline jump in:

Judge Luttig's father was murdered, and liberals may be poised to argue that this fact would render him impermissibly biased in death penalty cases (but doesn't he hear such cases now as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge?)

Check out that parsing - "liberals may be poised". No one's poised for anything at this point. The whole outcry is based on that nine year old article that Hugh Hewitt brought out.

And that question they ask, the one about him hearing such cases now? It's covered in the original article linked by Hugh and Carol:

Since the murder of his father, Luttig, by his own account, has been asked to step down from "a number" of cases "involving petitions of defendants sentenced to death."

John Blume, a lawyer from South Carolina, prepared a motion asking Luttig to disqualify himself only to find on the morning of arguments that Luttig would not be on his client's panel. Other lawyers have considered making such a motion, but decided against it.

"My conclusion was that there was no chance he would recuse himself for the very reason he stated," said Washington lawyer Benjamin Boyd, who represented Virginia death row inmate Herman Barnes.

"I guess it's a slippery slope," Boyd said. "Anytime anyone is hurt by anyone, you could make the same argument. . . . Ultimately, Judge Luttig is the only person who can decide whether the tragedy that befell his family affects his work, and he's decided that it hasn't and that's good enough for me."

A three-judge panel, including Luttig, affirmed Barnes' conviction for the murder of a Hampton grocer. Barnes was executed Nov. 13, 1995.

Also noted in the article:

Clarence Thomas, Marshall's successor on the Supreme Court, has stepped away from several cases involving sexual harassment because of his former position as the head of an agency that litigated such cases and his experience of being publicly accused of sexual harassment.

So Luttig does in fact, hear those kind of cases, Powerline. And he's been asked to recuse himself numerous times, and he says the ruling doesn't affect his ability to judge. And judging from the article presented, there is no proof to present that it does. Luttig never overturned a capital case, before or after the murder of his father.

If this is all a bit of pre-emption on the part of the right to get guys like me to pre-approve guys like Lutting, well, you got me. Based on this one article, I don't think the left has much to stand on.

Of course, this article is all that I've read. But it's entirely possible I'll revisit this view in the future. Someone could produce a tape of Luttig claiming he'll fry every guy that comes before him or have a video of him telling a group that he would never send anyone to die again. Certainly we would all agree that this would reveal him to be "less than unbiased" in future rulings.

But hey, guys, way to start an argument that, until now, no one else was really making.

*UPDATE* I'm not the only one who noticed.