I Assume Tom DeLay Is Not Reading This

I really hope Tom DeLay likes the taste of his feet, because he's putting them in his mouth damn near every day. His latest meltdown is another attack on judges, this time Justice Kennedy. In addition to the usual attack on using "foreign law" to support a decision, DeLay is now concerned about Kennedy's work habits:

And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

First of all, I'm fairly certain that Justice Kennedy does very little of his own research, on the Net or no (that's what law clerks are for). But secondly, this reminds me of Bush the Elder's astonishment at bar-code scanners at the grocery store all that time ago - is DeLay that out of touch? Does he simply believe that the Net is filled with nothing by left-wing rabble rousers and free porn (now if only someone would create a web site for left-wing rabble rousing porn they'd be on to something)? He, or at least his staff, should know better. For one thing, Congress itself has a copious online presence, from current and past legislation (in excruciating detail) to streaming webcasts of committee hearings. For another, the Supreme Court, all the federal courts, and most state courts release their opinions online. With the help of info sites like Findlaw or blogs like How Appealing, you can keep up to date on late breaking decisions quite easily. And finally, lots of people (your humble narrator included) access Westlaw and/or Lexis via the Web.

I guess my point is, if DeLay didn't have his head so far up his own ass, he'd know that doing legal research on the Web is not only perfectly acceptable, but fairly important in the 21st Century.