The Peters court.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Supreme Court judges - Brief Article - Column

I've been thinking about the kind of Supreme Court justice I would appoint--I have a weakness for fantasy--and I was surprised to realize that the first question I would ask him is: Can he figure out a constitutional way to get the money out of politics? The number one target should be the manufactured campaign commercial, which is where most of the money now goes.

My best guess as to an approach is to argue that the first amendment means what it says, that the speech that should be free is speech, words spoken by the candidate, not by professional actors and not involving artifice of any kind. The Constitution gives the individual the right to speak his mind, but not to have experts splice film and use sound effects to make him look better--or if he's the opponent, worse--than he really...