Here's some thousands of pages of documents. Find something newsworthy in 'em. Pity the reporter who has had to slog through stacks of memos by Johnny Roberts, America's newest Supreme Court justice (in waiting). I guess if I had to read through that much interoffice inanity, I, too, would want an article to show for it. But the New York Times's Anne Kornblut must really have been desperate. Her breaking news: Judge Roberts can spell! Even complex words like Namibia! And he has a command of basic grammar!

But don't be too hard on Kornblut. For she got a quote from Ted Sorenson, a Kennedy speechwriter, that takes damning with faint praise to a new high. Sorenson told her, "This is the best thing I've heard about Judge Roberts so far." When the best you can say about a Supreme Court justice is that he understands what every schoolkid used to, back in the day, it, well, leaves me at a loss for words, and punctuation. I can't really answer the famous question that our chief executive posed: "Is our children learning?" But at least those of our children who grow up to become big, important judges is indeed learning. And correcting. The spelling of Namibia, for instance. (I for one am reashured to no that if tricky decisions involving places like Tegucigalpa or Saskatchewan come before the court, Justice Roberts will fix any mistakes.) He also, the Times tells us, replaced, in one instance, "plulilateral" with "multilateral", though we don't find out why. But we are provided with the everpresent Helpful Expert Quote. A Law Professor acknowledges that, Especially in Law, It is Good to be Precise. Hearye, hearye.

I can't wait until William Rehnquist retires, so I can learn that Alberto Gonzales knows the entire alphabet, and that the Bill of Writes is safe.