Stuart Taylor Jr. advances his John Doe investigation story by publishing his long list of questions to the prosecutor John Chisholm.

I'm not surprised that Chisholm declines to answer Taylor's long list of questions, even though Chisholm did speak up in response to Taylor's original attack and seemingly went to some trouble in an effort to to impugn Michael Lutz. Lutz was Taylor's unnamed source for the article that depicted the prosecutor and his office as highly politicized and openly antagonistic to Governor Scott Walker.

The questions standing alone go a long way toward rehabilitating Lutz after the attack on his credibility and they also work to restate and emphasize Lutz's original charges against Chisholm. Taylor observes that Chisholm has generally denied that he had a political agenda, but that he doesn't seem to have denied the specific allegations that Lutz had made. This corresponds to what I wrote when I saw Chisholm's response:

Reading [Taylor's original attack and Chisholm's response], I'm thinking that Taylor raised suspicions that Chisholm and his lawyers and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have not adequately refuted. I want to see a specific statement from Chisholm that goes into the details, something more than expressions of outrage and denials that could be based on Chisholm's belief that he compartmentalized his prosecutorial decisionmaking and his personal political beliefs and husbandly tenderness.

Were there blue fist signs in the office and other expressions of support for unions and antagonism to Walker? What was the extent of participation in the protests? Did Chisholm speak openly about his wife's feelings in the context of the case? Taylor's article created a strong motivation to respond on that level, and neither Chisholm nor his lawyer provided that response.

So I'm pleased to see Taylor taking this approach — with far more detailed questions —and I'll reprint Taylor's questions below:

"Reagan's Justice" — an ominous New York Review of Books article about Robert Bork.

I remembered the title of the scary piece (by Ronald Dworkin), which was published in 1984, and I remembered the uber-creepy David Levine caricature that accompanied it:



After Bork got borked, Dworkin got another piece in the NYRB — "What does Bork’s defeat mean? Did the American public reject Bork’s announced philosophy of original intention? If so, what alternative constitutional philosophy, if any, did the public endorse?" — and David Levine drew him again. Look how cute:



Now that he's not a threat, he's a lovable Santa Claus. That's art, baby!

AND: From high(ish) art to low, here's an old Letterman Top 10 list: "Top 10 Names for Robert Bork's Beard":