Posted by Orin Kerr:
The NY Times and the Hunt For the "Constitution in Exile":
Given that [1]the Constitution in Exile movement doesn't seem to
exist, some may be wondering why the New York Times commissioned Jeff
Rosen to write a [2]long and detailed cover story about it for the
Sunday Times magazine. I've been mulling it over, and have come up
with four possible explanations for their interest:
1) Any old newspaper can report on a real trend, but it takes the
paper of record to invent one. Feeling emboldened by their
successful invention of [3]"man dates" last week, the editors
wanted a greater challenge.
2) The Times editors have been reading lots of Hayek recently and
have become fascinated by libertarian thought. Their library
stopped subscribing to Regulation back in 1996, however, so they
didn't know about developments after 1995.
3) Any story that features a hot picture of Richard Epstein is
going to sell a lot of newspapers. 'Nuff said.
4) Tainting future Bush judicial picks with some kind of shadowy
extremism might just influence a future Senate vote. All the better
if the shadowy movement doesn't actually exist: the harder it is to
find the movement, the harder it is to prove that Bush's pick has
no connection to it.
I'm sure other possibilities exist, but these four seem the most
plausible to me.
References
1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_04_17-2005_04_23.shtml#1113766638
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/magazine/17CONSTITUTION.html?
3.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/fashion/10date.html?ex=1270785600&en=37bef79604f97228&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
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