I like Goldberg's article, suitably subtitled,
"AP calls it a 'fight-for-the-little-guy sensibility;' I call it state-sanctioned prejudice."
Goldberg says:
Obama and the vast majority of Senate Democrats believe that Lady Justice should peek from under the blindfold every now and then.
He quotes former Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman who wrote last year:
“I’ve never been sure why Lady Justice wore a blindfold as part of her permanent wardrobe. Yes, it’s supposed to be a symbol of impartiality. But it does limit her vision a bit.” For Goodman, the best judges reject the “myth” of impartiality.
To which Goldberg responds:
Of course impartial justice is an abstraction, but it isn’t so much a myth as an ideal. Since we are all designed from the crooked timber of humanity, we can only approximate perfect justice.
What I don’t understand is why we should abandon an ideal simply because it is unattainable. If I can’t be a perfect husband, should I get a divorce? If an umpire can’t call each game flawlessly, should he stop trying? Maybe for 95 percent of pitches the ump should call ’em straight, but for the other 5 percent he should give the black or gay batters the benefit of the doubt?
He goes on:
In a country this vast, diverse, and dynamic, any judicial conception of the little guy is bound to confuse more than it clarifies. . .
Unless the plight of every gay, black, poor, old, or disabled American is the same, then coming into court favoring a specific category of human being is nothing more than state-sanctioned prejudice.
The benefit of the ideal of impartial justice is that it provides a standard by which judges aren’t asked to rule by prejudice. We’ll never fully get there, but I don’t think we should stop trying.