Supreme Court candidate Diane Wood, writing roughly one year after 9/11: “It would be far too much to assert that the United States has been transformed over the space of one year into a totalitarian, lawless society.”
That’s from her law-review article titled “The Rule of Law in Times of Stress” (70 U. Chi. L. Rev. 455, 465 (2003) (emphasis added).) Evidently, Wood couldn’t bring herself to use the word “War” instead of “Stress.” Indeed, she complains that “the Executive Branch of the federal government uses the rhetoric of war to describe its efforts to root out and conquer terrorism.” (Id. at 456.)
I don’t know if there’s a name for the condemnation-masquerading-as-concession that Wood engages in. It’s a cousin of damning with faint praise, I suppose.
I’ll just say: It would be far too much to assert that there is not a single person in the country who would make a worse justice than Diane Wood.