Robert Hughes was for many years the art critic for Time magazine. At the same time he was, as an Australian, an émigré to the United States who studied and deeply understood our culture, history and politics. He was one of the most fascinating talkers we ever had on the program and here he is in brilliant form, in a 2006 conversation.

One of the best journalists ever to cover Washington was Tom Wicker of the New York Times. When finally he retired in 2004, having covered all of the regimes from Eisenhower to George W. Bush, he appeared on our program to talk about his many encounters with the Presidents – including how he got a prominent place on Nixon’s Enemies List.

The great poet said “The world is too much with us” and if living at this moment he might well add, “and it all might be breaking down right now.” All this is examined in a contentious and extended exchange by our discussants: Chris Robling and Charles Lipson of our A-Team and our Democratic strategist friend David Lundy.

The famously rejected nominee takes on the Supreme Courts of the U.S., Canada and Israel and finds them representative of a great failing in western jurisprudence: i.e. seeking to make new law and, thus, to “legislate” instead of “adjudicate.” He had just published in 2003 a book laying out the argument that he presents quite forcefully in this discussion. And speaking of counter-factuals, how might our history have been different if he had been allowed onto the Supreme Court?

This 2006 conversation with the main man at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) aroused and infuriated – and all the more so today because the problems it highlighted then persist.