What Might Have Been ...

I'm not generally inclined toward judicial fandom. So a judge makes a correct ruling. That's what they're supposed to do, right? It's not like reading and applying the law is some kind of superhuman feat.

Nonetheless, I was pleasantly surprised by the dismissal of completely baseless "jury tampering" charges against Julian Heicklen this last week. That's the kind of case where one might expect politics to trump justice. So good on the judge, whoever she was.

But wait ... the judge was that Kimba Wood?

Yup! She was Bill Clinton's second pick for Attorney General of the United States, after Zoe Baird withdrew. She got 86ed as well after it was discovered she'd once employed an "illegal immigrant" [sic^*], albeit at a time when it was completely "legal" to do so.

So we ended up with Janet Reno.

I have to wonder if, absent the immigration demagoguery that torpedoed Baird's and Woods's confirmation prospects, we might have avoided the Waco massacre (and therefore the Oklahoma City bombing), the abduction/deportation of Elian Gonzalez, etc.

* The US Constitution includes no federal power to regulate immigration, meaning that per the Tenth Amendment and Madison v. Marbury, all federal laws on the subject are void.