A Law Unto Herself A Law Unto Herself

Ann Althouse has outdone herself today in a NYT op-ed: A Law Unto Herself. I am, of course, an avid Althouse fan. Indeed, she is probably my favorite blogger (bloggeress?) It is esp. timely to juxtapose this with Laurence Tribe's recent letter which applauded the results of the recent decision by Judge Taylor that the NSA's TSP was illegal, but questioned the quality of the opinion. Tribe suggests that we don't look under the lady's robe to see the legal analysis, as long as she comes to the right result. Ann counters this and points out that the "soft power" of the judicary is a result of the public's belief that the Judiciary is dispassionate and unpartisan when performing its duties, and, in particular, when it is determining the limits of power for the two elected branches of government, and, thus, Judge Taylor's decision here, whether right or wrong, works to lessen the power of the Judiciary, by disabusing us of our belief that the unelected is disppassionate and unpartison in its analysis.