Phil Bredesen be on this list? So he hasn’t raised taxes, as most of Time’s honorees have, still less been complicit in trashing the state’s constitution to do it, as Kenny Guinn was. Janet Napolitano hasn’t raised taxes, either, and she’s on the list. So you don’t have to raise taxes to get there: it just helps. Being a rising-star Democrat is also a qualification. So, again, where’s Bredesen?
And what’s with the carpentry metaphors? Over the weekend it was a Yale law professor saying that Alito’s opinions were well carpentered but not beautiful. (Justice Douglas’s opinions were like Chartres Cathedral, apparently.) Now this. Has some memo gone out on this? Is David Broder going to start talking about the “sturdy workmanship” of the National Governors Association?