Like literally dozens of Missourians, I waited in breathless anticipation for Blunt's Great Email Reveal this past Friday.  What salacious behavior would we find?  Embezzlement?  Intrigue?  Questionable language?

At least I wasn't disappointed on the third point.  There are a few curse words--predictably, from Ed Martin.  However, the content is decidedly boring.  The main aspect of this "scandal" that seems to fire up the media is the revelation that Governor Blunt's former Chief of Staff Ed Martin acted politically.

I still have no idea why it's a bad thing for a politician to use a state email account to fire up the base or attempt to influence public policy on conservative issues.  To those ends, Martin informed social conservatives that Planned Parenthood-endorsed Jay Nixon wouldn't adequately defend Missouri's abortion laws in a Planned Parenthood-initiated legal challenge.  Martin also kvetched about the appointment of Grade A Ditz and flaming liberal Pat Breckenridge to the Missouri Supreme Court.

Other than noting that Martin has an astounding command of the obvious, I'm not sure how we can criticize these emails.  A governor's chief of staff holds an inherently political office--unlike, say, the Attorney General, not that Jay Nixon taken much notice of that whole "neutrality" thing during his tenure (see here and here).  Accordingly, if someone claims that a governor's chief of staff is politicizing his office, that sounds like credible evidence that the guy is doing his job.

Thus, the really interesting part of this lawsuit seems to have been lost in the fray.  None other than the vaunted Associated Press writes, "The e-mails . . . reveal politicization in the selection of judicial nominees . . ."   Great Scott!  The great and unassailable Missouri Plan is susceptible to politicization?  I'm shocked--shocked!

This goes against everything I've learned from the Missouri Bar.  Those guys swear up and down that the Missouri Plan is somehow immune from corruption--so immune, in fact, that there's no need for anyone to ever know anything about what goes on in those super-secret judicial selection meetings.  And here I thought that a fascistic refusal to disclose anything about a government process was a virtual guarantee that that process is fair and unobjectionable.  Upon reflection, perhaps the Bar, which contributes four of the seven people who nominate the judges to send to the Governor, has a conflict of interest and can't be trusted on this issue!

Now that I think about it even more, if the Governor's office can politicize the Missouri Plan, could the Appellate Judicial Commission also politicize the process?  Could it be that a completely unaccountable, trial lawyer-dominated panel is selecting plaintiff-friendly, socially liberal judicial nominees in flagrant disregard of Missourians' clear preference for textualists on the bench?

The only remotely reasonable argument for the Missouri Plan arises out of disgust with the "politicization" of the judiciary.  Otherwise, how would we countenance taking control over the judicial system away from the people?  Yet, since the Governor's office and the Appellate Judicial Commission have both politicized judicial selection under the Missouri Plan, we must accept that judges, and their selection, are inherently political.  Judges have different philosophies--textualism versus "legislation from the bench," for example.  And everyone--and yes, that includes guys in black robes--has biases.  Since those facts are obvious to anyone with even a cursory understanding of the judiciary, the more control we can give to the people, the better we'll be.