Correspondence

...It is easy to see why O'Connor and Kennedy couldn't bring themselves to do so...

...It would have required them (a) to admit that such a thing as judicial activism does in fact exist and (b) to do so in reference to a constitutional provision that expressly confers power on a state legislature, seemingly in derogation of the courts...

...The Supreme Court said it was, and ordered a stop to the law-breaking in Florida...

...GEB SOMMER Lexington, SC DON'T GET ME WRONG THOUGH MARGARET HILDEBRAND found more than a few kind words to say about my new book, Exhibitionism: Art in an Era of Intolerance, much of her review is misleading and mistaken ("Liberal Arts," Dec...

...Thanks for the memories...

...Supreme Court's jurisdiction, the other being equal protection of law...

...Novak didn't mention Winnetou's sister, Nscho-tschi...

...The Florida electoral scheme's involvement with that federal statute furnished one of two federal-law grounds supporting the U.S...

...Justice Ginsburg's paeans to deference to state courts were blatantly outcome-oriented, as she is hardly so disposed where that principle does not suit her views of individual civil liberties, as in abortion cases...

...Supreme Court's decision: The process fiddled and fumbled until time ran out...

...LYNNE MUNSON Boston, MA MARGARET HILDEBRAND RESPONDS: Munson is right that the NEA's first visual arts grants were awarded in 1967—but Exhibitionism studies the process by which the first grantees were chosen, which took place in 1966...

...I wonder how many young readers fell in love with her, as I did...

...But the less legalistic, more political point is strategic, gratifying to proponents of pluralistic democracy, and appealingly consistent with the Bush campaign's postelection posture...

...But a few too many conservative voices are joining the chorus, too...

...Let's all just say it together: Courts are supposed to make legal rulings...

...The close call was between invoking the U.S...

...In my book the only praise I find for blockbuster exhibitions is that their "attendance figures undermine the [decon-structionist] claim that great art is incapable of speaking to everyone...

...BILL PEPER Warren, MI JOHN J. DIIULIO JR., protesting the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision, seemed to miss an important point...

...Her stance is consistent with a longstanding leftist contention that conservatives are obliged to adhere to their advocated standards of consistency of principle, whereas liberals, who deem their own vindication the highest good and so advocate situational expediency in the interest of prevailing, are entitled to wide doctrinal latitude...

...v. Nixon to Bush v. Gore" (Dec...

...Either decision is wiser, more reasoned, and more reasonable than any of the Florida Supreme Court's three decisions...

...It is reasonable to argue that the greater civics lesson would have been for the Florida legislature and Congress to correct the errors of the Florida Supreme Court than for the U.S...

...The others would have dismissed the legislature's selection of the "safe harbor" for its electors as trivial...

...Everyone from gigantic corporations to schnooks sitting in some alleyway knows that when some law, written to protect your rights, is being ignored or abused, you have a right to go to court to seek redress...

...Tod Lindberg's preceding article, "Al Gore's Legal Doomsday Machine," strikes nearer the determinative point of the U.S...

...Hildebrand ascribes to me opinions that I do not hold and even some that I have challenged publicly, such as the offensive and absurdist notion that not everyone is capable of appreciating high art...

...And federal statute had already decreed that the state legislature's rules for doing so could not be changed after the election, not even by the state courts...

...Novak is right in asserting that Einstein and Schweitzer were hardly alone in their appreciation of Karl May—and it did not end with Hermann Hesse and Zuckmayer...

...It is also disconcerting that, in discussing the endowment, Hildebrand goes on at length about what, in Exhibitionism, I tried scrupulously to avoid—rehashing the litany of NEA controversies (Map-plethorpe, Serrano, Finley, et al...

...My generation grew up with Old Shatterhand and Kara Ben Nemsi in the midst of World War II (in Berlin, in my case...

...Case closed...

...It's from a 1999 article in The Occasional...

...The decisive holding that time had expired on December 12 was grounded in an emphasis on the significance of the Florida legislature's having chosen to take advantage of the "safe harbor" provisions of Title 3 U.S...

...25) suggests—or deciding the case on its merits...

...As an attorney who has studied the decisions issued by the Court, I appreciate Greve's careful analysis and his willingness to criticize the majority's amorphous equal protection argument...

...I do not...

...Why was it illegitimate for Bush to do so...

...Supreme Court's "political question" doctrine and beginning the process of revitalizing our tattered republican institutions—as Robert Nagel's "From U.S...

...In Exhibitionism I look at how postmodern ideas have undermined our art institutions, including museums, galleries, art schools, college art history departments, and the National Endowment for the Arts...

...The per curiam opinion joined by five justices—the only component of the legal literature handed down that will be binding legal authority—acknowledges the U.S...

...Seven justices agreed that the Florida Supreme Court had defaulted that duty, but only five of those considered the deadline parameter sufficiently important to declare that time to correct the equal protection problem had run out...

...But Hildebrand leapfrogs over much of the book, spending all but a few sentences of her review focusing on the less than one third of Exhibitionism that deals with the NEA...

...Constitutional law and federal statute were seemingly being ignored in Florida...

...On another note, my review cites Munson's statement that blockbuster museum shows "do serve a civic need—they bring high-quality art to masses of people...

...I'll spare your readers a full review of Hildebrand's factual errors, which include her confusion of the NEA's advisory council with its peer panels and her repeated reference to 1966, rather than 1967, as the year when the endowment inaugurated its grant program for visual artists...

...J.L...

...Constitution's literal language designating state legislatures, as distinguished from entire tripartite state governments, arbiters of the conduct of state elections, including federal and particularly presidential elections...

...Supreme Court has now found the courage to do what the Constitution commands even when its decision will be met by derision in circles of fashionable opinion ("An Act of Courage," Dec...

...The Court was not replacing the authority of Congress to deal with the Florida mess— it was pointing out that the Congress had already done so with previous laws...

...Neither state legislatures nor state judiciaries can waive or erode those norms...

...And this undermines Nelson Lund's otherwise welcome suggestion that a majority of the U.S...

...NATHANIEL T. TRELEASE Cheyenne, WY PLEASE THANK MICHAEL GREVE for his analysis of the Supreme Court's decision...

...Code Section 5. That section exempts from U.S...

...Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision (Dec...

...My review devotes most attention to the NEA, because, as Munson herself puts it, the NEA "epitomized" the problems in the arts...

...Exhibitionism contains criticism for those on both sides of the art wars who have fanned the flames of controversy instead of engaging in a serious discussion about what ails our art institutions...

...it nevertheless leaves state courts room to interpret legislation and even fashion remedies to correct perceived omissions in legislation, but recites that they must, when they do so, conform to the equal protection, one-person, one-vote norms imposed by the U.S...

...SCHALLERT Cambridge, WI SCHNITZEL WESTERNS I HAD CHILLS RUN down my spine while reading Ben Novak's "Cowboys und Indians" (Dec...

...It's bad enough to hear liberals repeating this tiresome cant...

...Supreme Court's reliance on Equal Protection grounds for their per curiam opinion was improper and very worrisome going forward ("Equal Protection Run Amok," "The Real Division in the Court," Dec...

...Had Justices o'Connor and Kennedy been willing to sign the Article II portions of the chief justice's opinion, there would have been no good reason to consider the equal protection claim raised by the Bush team...

...In addition, the per curiam volubly signals this is a unique and singular case, by no means to be applied to any except virtually identical, therefore exceedingly rare, situations presenting facts identical to its own—to be "limited to its facts," in legal parlance...

...It is also reasonable to argue that the Florida Supreme Court's error was a specifically judicial error, one of judges improperly interpreting a legal text, which is susceptible of appellate review...

...George W. Bush asked the highest federal court to decide whether or not this was actually the case...

...For several reasons, Bush v. G^ire does not substantially threaten federalism...

...Suffice it to say that Hildebrand's review describes neither the content nor the tone of Exhibitionism with any reasonable degree of accuracy...

...It is most refreshing to see the left's long-standing and heretofore successful anti-ethic, "The benefit of our expediencies for us, the detriment of your principles for you," give way to a level-field contest based on reciprocity, or, in other words, a goose-and-gander rule restored at last...

...congressional challenges those presidential electors identified through a legally instituted state electoral process by the prescribed deadline...

...Somehow two of these volumes, Winnetou I and Kapitan Kaimanare, are still in my possession...

...Why was it illegitimate for the Supreme Court to do what every other court in the land does...

...Supreme Court to act as it did...

...The NEA essay is also her most interesting...

...25), as it took me back to the early 1940s when this then 10-year-old devoured at least 40 of Karl May's 70-plus Gesammelte ^er^e...

...JOHN G. LANKFORD San Pedro Town, Belize I AGREE WITH John J. Dilulio Jr.'s and Michael Greve's assertion that the U.S...

...Constitution...

...I cited it because it shows she was not always as disparaging of average viewers as she is in Exhibitionism...

...Ginsburg's snippy omission of an expression of respect for the Court she sits on in concluding her dissent, and Justice John Paul Stevens's bitter denunciation bordering on impeachable malfeasance (a lawyer who said the same of the Court would clearly be subject to ethical sanctions), express only the self-righteous outrage of frustrated agendists...

...The Constitution itself had already decreed that the state legislature, not the state court, should decide on the selection of electors...

...In sum, the point for which Bush v. Gore furnishes precedential authority vindicates the prerogatives of state legislatures much more than it overbears those of state judiciaries...

...Apparently, she believes I ascribe the statement to Exhibitionism...