On March 19, Charles Hurt of The Washington Times produced one of those enterprising news stories that restore credit to an increasingly lazy profession.

Hurt asked a group of prominent law professors about the now-notorious staff memo written to Senator Ted Kennedy. That would be the memo recommending that Senator Kennedy fulfill a request from Elaine Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to stall the confirmation of judges to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit until after the University of Michigan affirmative action case was decided by that court.

Here’s what the law professors said to Hurt:

Professor Ronald Rotunda of George Mason University, and one of the country’s leading authorities on legal ethics, said, "My jaw dropped when I heard that one. It’s very troubling."

Professor Jonathan Turley of the Georgetown University Law Center said, "Wow! It raises very serious questions about propriety. On its face, there is an element of complicity and dishonesty. This is certainly not what the Framers intended when they gave the Senate the power of confirmation. The fact that this kind of discussion occurred at all is outrageous."

Professor Douglas Kmiec of Pepperdine University, who called the effort "panel-stacking," said, "It assumes that the law is equivalent to politics. It also assumes that it is perfectly licit to get a favorable outcome by basically rigging the process."

According to Hurt, "The only legal scholars contacted by The Washington Times who did not condemn the Kennedy memo were University of Chicago’s Cass R. Sunstein and Harvard University’s Lawrence H. Tribe, two law professors who are widely credited with developing the current Democratic strategies to block Republican nominees."

Now note carefully what Professor Sunstein told Hurt: "I don’t want to comment on stolen materials. Even if there is something bad in there, it would be improper of me — and possibly of you — to comment on them."

Sunstein obviously got the Kennedy/Durbin/Schumer/Leahy talking points … all the way out in Chicago. The memo was "stolen," thus it would be "improper" to comment … even if there is something bad in there. It would even be improper for Hurt to comment.

While we frequently disagree with Professor Sunstein, we have, up until now, at least respected him. Even the Pickle Report has dispelled the canard that the memo was "stolen" or resulted from "computer hacking."

Perhaps the good professor has forgotten the Pentagon Papers case. The Pentagon Papers were official government documents, which really were stolen and then given to The New York Times. They were even classified (although probably for no good reason at the time).

The U.S. Supreme Court told The New York Times to publish away, have a field day. The New York Times, and virtually every other news organization in the civilized world, not only published, but commented for years.

The Pentagon Papers case turned on prior restraint, implicating serious national security issues, no matter how inappropriately construed.

The Kennedy memo is now a matter of public record, however it got there. What it says is a big old no no. You don’t fix legal cases in the United States. You don’t if you’re the Mafia. You don’t if you’re the NAACP. You don’t if you’re in the U.S. Senate. You don’t fix cases by bribing judges, intimidating witnesses or threatening jurors. You don’t fix cases even through the staggeringly audacious method proposed by Ms. Jones, far more contemptible than its more traditional manifestations, because this one originated with a counsel in a case who then enlisted aides to a U.S. Senator.

We understand Professor Sunstein’s embarrassment at what his liberal cohorts in the Senate have been doing (a lot more than what is in the Kennedy memo, one of the few involving judicial confirmations made public). He just signed on to help with a bit of ideological filibustering. Not this.

Charles Hurt asked Senator Kennedy’s office to comment on the memo. Kennedy spokesman David Smith said, "I don’t feel the need to comment on a stolen memo that I don’t even know the Senator saw."

A few subpoenas might get some people feeling the need to comment. But that seems unlikely, at this point. Investigating the activities of the NAACP gets one labeled a racist. Investigating Senator Kennedy could expose a much larger cesspool. The sounds of silence are deafening.

Note that Smith says, "I don’t even know the Senator saw [the memo]." He works for the guy; he could go down the hall and ask. Except he can’t.

If Kennedy denies seeing the memo, and then a record pops up that he did, he’s compounding the issue. If he admits that he did see it, that begs a dozen additional questions, every one of them a potential trap.

Smith told Hurt that there is no evidence that Kennedy or any other Democrat held up the confirmation of the nominee to the Sixth Circuit. The Washington Times went to the calculators. In a two-year period, only four judges (out of 101) waited longer. Three of those four were "controversial." The nominee for the Sixth Circuit, eventually confirmed by a unanimous vote, was not, as admitted by Senator Kennedy’s staffer in the memo.

That’s not evidence. It’s circumstance. But somewhere in the delay between a memo that demonstrated intent to stack a judicial panel and an unusually long confirmation that accomplished exactly what was intended, there may be evidence if anyone were to actually look for it.

As a legal matter, Senator Kennedy has the right to remain silent. The right against self-incrimination is among the strongest of our Constitution, of our system of justice. It is absolute. Just as stonewalling is absolutely the first refuge of a scoundrel.