If wishes were horses

The questions of the day over at Politico's Arena are "What will Obama be looking for in a Supreme Court Justice? What's the impact of a possible Souter departure? Bonus: Who might be on the Obama short list?"

Now, I do not style myself a legal scholar or avid Supreme Court watcher. (That is why God gave us Dahlia Lithwick and SCOTUSblog.) But I like to think I have an idea or two about contemporary American politics. Which is why I found the following comment by Mickey Carroll, Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute (and someone who presumably knows a lot more about contemporary American politics than I do) so risible:

Whoever Obama picks, let's hope that the hearings don't turn into the poisonous political posturing that's become a Washington habit.

Well, then, while we're at it, let us also hope that jelly donuts will fall gently from the sky, that the American auto industry will be taken over by an industrious and savvy race of elves, and that I will wake up tomorrow looking exactly like Jake Gyllenhaal. Because the poisonous political posturing (love the alliteration, by the way) is practically predestined as a permanent part of our political process of perpetual pontification.

In other words, Washington will break its habit of poisonous political posturing around about when the sun goes nova.

Why, you might ask? I give you Exhibit A (and Carroll's fellow Arena contributor), one Grover Norquist:

Obama will nominate a judge who will legislate from the bench. An activist who acknowledges no real limits on the power of the State.

As has been recently noted, the Club for Growth's self-defeating ideological rigidity is kind of a boon for progressive politics. Sadly, they're not nearly so good for political discourse in general. Sorry, Mr. Carroll, but I think you can expect Washington's habit to continue unabated.

Update: Lest you think I think the problem is limited to the Club for Growth, allow me to reassure you that I don't think the problem ends there. Not by a long shot.