In a prior life, under President Ronald Wilson Reagan during the 1980s, then-young, then-Republican apparatchik Alex Kozinski taught government officials how to fire whistleblowers as Special Counsel. As a result, when Kozinski was nominated to the Ninth Circuit, Kozinski barely won Senate confirmation under withering opposition from my former boss, Tom Devine, and the Government Accountability Project (GAP). That was then. This is now.
Today, we love Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a Romanian-American champion of civil liberties -- a scholarly, witty judge who doesn't suffer fools gladly, one who exemplifies judicial courage in protection of citizens' civil and constitutional rights, showing once again the wisdom of our Framers regarding judicial independence and lifetime tenure (subject to good behavior) for all Federal Judges. See New York Times editorial and link to Santa Cruz First Amendment case, below.
Judge Kozinski proves Thomas Jefferson's belief about the perfectability of human nature. Judge Alex Kozinski exemplifies what Bernard Malamud wrote in The Natural: "I believe that we each have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that."
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