There's a good reason, as substitute host Alicia Menendez said on Nicolle Wallace's MSNBC show on Wednesday evening, why Wallace likes to promote Michael Luttig as "a conservative's conservative."
It's because Luttig nowadays likes to offer opinions that are music to the ears of the liberal media. He's an "MSNBC conservative" in the same sense that former RNC Chairman turned member of the Lincoln Project Michael Steele is an "MSNBC Republican."
Thus, for example, during the Supreme Court confirmation process of far-left Ketanji Brown Jackson, our Alex Christy caught Luttig extolling her as the “most credentialed and experienced nominee in history.”
On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough quoted from Luttig on Wednesday, lining him up with other "very conservative jurists" against Trump on the ballot.
On Wallace's show yesterday, Luttig once again played the role of a useful conservative propounding views destined to delight the left. He declared that the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court banning Donald Trump from the ballot, supposedly pursuant to the terms of the 14th Amendment, to be: "a masterful judicial opinion. It is unassailable and irrefutable in every single respect."
You could sense liberal hearts swooning from coast to coast!
And in a statement that was either deeply naive or deeply cynical, Luttig said of of the Colorado court's decision:
"This is not politics. It is certainly not partisan politics. And the Supreme Court's decision yesterday was not a political decision in any sense of that word."
Really? All of the judges voting to keep Trump off the ballot were originally appointed by Democrat governors, and were subsequently required to run for office. So these are, by definition, partisan political Democrats in a state that in 2020 went for Biden by a 13.5% margin over Trump.
Luttig also claimed that when the United States Supreme Court takes up the issue, it is obliged to affirm the Colorado ruling, saying, "there is no other decision that the Supreme Court could make."
Interestingly, Luttig went on to say that should the Supreme Court nevertheless overturn the Colorado decision:
"It's the responsibility of the American people all of us, to accept that decision as the binding constitutional decision of this momentous issue. I have always, my entire life, held my entire life, the institution of the Supreme Court in great reverence. I hold this Court today in the same reverence. And if the Court were to decide this case differently than I believe it should be decided, I will hold the same reverence for the Supreme Court on that day that I hold the Court in reverence with today."
If, as many predict, the Supreme Court does overturn the Colorado decision, Luttig's liberal-media invitations can be expected to quickly dry up if his reaction is to express reverence for the Court and call on all the American people to accept the decision!
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Deadline White House
12/20/23
4:02 on ETALICIA MENENDEZ: Judge Luttig, you know Nicolle likes to say you are a conservative's conservative. You were short-listed for the Supreme Court by George W. Bush. Conservatives look to you for guidance, including, famously, VP Mike Pence. He turned to you when Donald Trump was pressuring him to interfere with the election results.
We are of course hearing criticisms of this ruling from the right.
It's worth remembering, this legal argument originated with conservative legal scholars like you. Judge, why is this ruling consistent with conservative legal thought?
MICHAEL LUTTIG: Thank you for having me with you this afternoon, Alicia. The Colorado Supreme Court yesterday decided the most consequential and pressing constitutional issue facing the country. Its decision will force the nation to decide, does it believe in American democracy, its Constitution, and the rule of law?
The Supreme Court of Colorado issued what I characterized as a masterful judicial opinion. It is unassailable and irrefutable in every single respect.
This is a historic decision. It's of monumental significance to the nation today. And when the Supreme Court eventually decides the case, it will be perhaps one of, if not the single most important, consequential decision in American history.
I believe that the Supreme Dourt of the United States, when and if it takes this particular case, should affirm the Colorado Supreme Court's decision. I believe that, based on the objective law, which in this instance is section 3 of the 14th Amendment, there is no other decision that the Supreme Court could make.
. . .
This is not politics. It is certainly not partisan politics. And the Supreme Court's decision yesterday was not a political decision in any sense of that word. It was a pure, and remarkably masterful decision of constitutional law.
