Is He Kidding?

The Senate this week is expected to take up the nomination of Daniel A. Manion of South Bend, Ind., to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. A major battle looms over this nomination, and President Reagan himself joined the fray in his weekly radio address on Saturday.

The President said that his judicial appointees in general had “proven abilities and the finest character.” Specifically, he called Manion “a fine lawyer . . . who has the ability and determination to become the kind of judge the American people want in the federal courts--one who believes in the rule of law, who reveres the Constitution and whose sense of fairness and justice is above reproach.”

Surely Reagan must have been joking or thinking of somebody else. Manion has not shown the slightest qualification to sit on a court that is one step below the U.S. Supreme Court, and he has shown many reasons why he is not fit. His legal scholarship is non-existent, and the briefs that he has written are riddled with errors of grammar, spelling, expression and thought--hardly a recommendation for a job that requires writing legal opinions.

He has rarely argued constitutional cases, and he has never argued any case before the court that Reagan would have him join. Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state could not require the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools, Manion introduced a bill into the Indiana Legislature to do just that.

Reagan insisted on Saturday that opposition to Manion was motivated purely by ideology: liberals opposing a conservative judge. Not true, Mr. President. Opposition to Manion is based on the demonstrable fact that he is not qualified for the job. To be sure, Reagan nominated Manion because of his politics, but the Senate should reject him because he is unfit.