Tom Smith (San Diego Law) brings his wicked wit to bear on Bruce Ackerman (Yale Law) who, together with my former colleague James Fishkin, has proposed a national “deliberation day” holiday prior to elections. Smith has another idea:

“As an alternative, I propose that Congress appropriate $500,000, to be paid to Bruce Ackerman on the condition that he not come up with any dumb ideas for a period of one year….

“I’m sorry. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. I went to Yale Law School and attempted to take a class from Prof. Ackerman and ended up dropping it because after listening to R.M. Hare, Jeremy Waldron, Ronald Dworkin, HLA Hart and Charles Taylor at Oxford, it was just too depressing. I went around thinking, ‘why does everybody think this guy is so smart?’ I still do not understand. It’s not just politics. Some conservatives think he’s smart. I admit he is very charming if you can stand to suck up to him like your life depends on it. But not everyone has that kind of energy. What if you just ate?”

And some people think I’m a bit rough on my targets….