Posner Gets Real

Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner, who has not been short on strong opinions of late, reveals some more personal details in a Q&A with Concurring Opinions’ Ronald K.L. Collins. He says the New York Times is excellent on the whole, although its editorials tend to be “flaccid and mechanically liberal.” He thought about becoming a professor of English literature for awhile (he loves Yeats, and calls Author Charles Reich a “pathetic idiot”) but says that would have been a big mistake. In the 1980s he yearned for an appointment to the Supreme Court, but he’s sure he would have disliked it. “It’s not a real Court,” he says. “I don’t like its case mix.”