Bloodless Coup

despite my shallow interests in attempting to offset the republican hegemony in the federal courts by appointing even younger jurists for as many courts as humanly possible (which has been a pretty blatant GOP strategy since bush 41), i ultimately think this is an appropriate corrective to a troubling trend. circuit and supreme court judges should have a lifetime of experience behind them, and, especially for the supreme court, i think it's not so much ridiculous as it is wholly unnecessary to appoint such young jurists.

so much talk goes into how we want judges with real broad-based experience to avoid the ivory tower excesses of an overly academic bench. but when you appoint them young enough, i think there's a real risk that even appropriately experienced jurists will, by the end of their tenures, have lost touch with whatever in-the-trenches insight they once had, in virtue of their growing distance, their fading memories, and because those trenches evolve over time.

so for now at least i'm going to view this as a heartening corrective to a disturbing trend, just as i do obama's erring on the side of too much interaction with the public, his appointment of brilliant rather than compliant folks to high executive positions, and so on.

That makes sense, though this could have an impact on Supreme Court nominees in the future. One reason Sotomayor always stood out as a likely nominee is that there were so few distinguised Democratic appeals court judges under 60. This could make that number even smaller. But your point is well taken.

2 more appeals court nominations (one to the 3rd and one to the 6th) - and once again the nominees are in their mid-late 50s.