Reply #8: Sunstein seems to be a little confused. . .

[pat_k]

I've been poking around. Cass R. Sunstein seems to be a bit muddled in his thinking.

Summary of Sunstein's views on Bush v. Gore from The Professors and Bush v. Gore:

In the Chronicle of Higher Education (Jan. 5, 2001), for example, University of Chicago law professor Sunstein declared that future historians would conclude that the Court had "discredited itself" with its "illegitimate, unprincipled, and undemocratic decision." . . .On December 13, the day after the case was decided, Sunstein told ABC News reporter Jackie Judd that the opinion "was a stabilizing decision that restored order to a very chaotic situation." On the same day on National Public Radio, Sunstein observed: "The fact that five of them reached out for a new doctrine over four dissenting votes to stop counting--it's not partisan, but it's troublesome." While he did not "expect the Court to intervene so aggressively," Sunstein allowed on NPR that its decision may have provided "the simplest way for the constitutional system to get out of this. And it's possible it's the least bad way. The other ways maybe were more legitimate legally but maybe worse in terms of more chaotic.". . .

Sunstein had this to say in Echo Chambers

. . .I was called by many radio and television stations during Bush v. Gore; but because I did not favor either side in the post-vote controversy. . .

I've only skimmed "Echo Chambers," but it looks to me like he's giving up on objective reality -- that he explains extreme differences in how people view political events as an artififact of "echo chambers" (Minimizing the fact that, more often than not, one side of a "partisan" debate is grounded in reality, while the other is not.)

This may explain his assertion that the fascist fantasy of an American "unitary executive" with unlimited power (promoted by John Yoo, Alito, Gonzales, et al) is within "reasonable bounds." If everything is opinion, lunacy has the same weight as fact.