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Did Eastman have the intellectual horsepower to know what he was talking about? Looking back from today at the scope of his career, I think the answer is pretty clearly no. He was a third-rate legal mind with first-rate political patrons who grabbed a winning lottery ticket when Florida Republicans looked around to hand one out to anyone who would retcon a legal rationale for their preferred outcome.

when third-raters keep getting passed up the ladder, because they exist in alternative ecosystems where the competition and standards are relaxed, they can wind up near real power. And cause real danger.

We’ve seen this exact problem in the world of conservative media, which, like the conservative legal world, was created with the goal of being its own alternative ecosystem. In conservative media the standards are a good bit more lax than they are in traditional media, even. (Which is saying something.)