Sometimes, Less is More.

To follow up on that last post, here's an excellent example of why we don't want to go down the identity politicking road in selecting our Supreme Court justices. This kind of professional "evaluation" is undignified, but presumably necessary if you pre-ordain that only women, or another identity group flavor-of-the-day, are currently being considered for the open SCOTUS seat.

Again, do we really want to play the "who is gay?" games, for these judges and justices and unmarried politicians at this mature point in their lives? (Hope I'm hearing a resounding, "NO! It just doesn't matter!" out there...)

Plus, if you do get a judicial win, how will you know if you won based on your own game, or if the umpire afforded you a handicap, thinking you couldn't win without? No thanks... honest competition is always more valuable in the end, even if it takes some years of losing to perfect your own game.

When you start playing identity politics, you see, that's when people start discovering their previously unknown great-great grandmother was Cherokee, or emphasizing details of background stories not for their intrinsic value in shaping character, but as check-offs on some diversity point list.

SCOTUS is not higher education, whose admission preferences and evaluation techniques so many outside the Academy believe is suspect, particularly non-advantaged ethnic candidates who don't fit into any predetermined diversity point categories. (Affirmative action based on socioeconomic factors over race/gender can't come fast enough, imo. That gives you true diversity of background, sorely lacking in some higher ed classrooms, and might show that all women, all blacks don't necessarily hold the mainstream liberal views thought to be pre-assigned to them.)

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UPDATE: I'm not exactly sure why potential SCOTUS consideration seems to bring out the sexual speculations, even for a married man like John Roberts, if you recall. But there you have it -- will there be a picture of a potential nominee in plaid pants (gasp!) setting the tongues of lesser minds to wagging? You never know when you start to go down these roads...