Philip Howard, aristocrat of the op-ed pages

Bill Childs at TortsProfs Blog today picks apart a New York Sun column by Common Good's Philip Howard. Bill puzzles over the strange construction of the article, which starts out talking about securities litigation and then veers off into issues of "trust" in the legal system and other mushy stuff about tort reform. Clearly, Bill hasn't been a regular reader of Howard's op-eds. The second half of the New York Sun piece is pretty much boilerplate from every other article he's ever written on the legal system. A sampling:

"Restoring trust in American justice can't be accomplished by tweaking this system. A functioning system of justice must aspire to deliberate choices, binding from one case to the next. Reliability is critical."--Philip Howard in the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 6. 2007

"Tort reforms limiting damages don't get close to the heart of the problem. American justice has a deeper flaw — it no longer reliably distinguishes right from wrong. Instead, decisions are made on an ad hoc basis, jury by jury, without predictable boundaries."--Philip Howard, New York Sun, Feb. 5, 2007.

I could do a similar match of up Howard's articles on health courts, non-risky playgrounds and school reform, but I can't bear the thought of having to go back to read them all. If you're really interested, they're all available on the Common Good website.