I don’t have much to say this week. Along with the rest of the country, the post-presidential election skirmishing pummeled me into stunned silence. Anything I might say has been said already – two or three times, probably, first in an attorney’s brief, then on a C-SPAN roundtable and finally as a joke from Letterman or Leno. So I have nothing to say. I do, however, have a series of questions, and if I could find the answer to some of them, even one or two, it would go a long way toward putting my mind at ease.

Question One: What’s going on with the Bush transition?

I know the legal back and forth has sharply cut into the time available for Governor Bush to assemble his administration and I know he’s spent a good deal of time in the past few weeks bringing folks out to the ranch and finding some denim clothes for them to wear for the tee vee cameras. But as far as I can see, everyone at the ranch is a former member of George Senior’s administration, so what’s to figure out? Get the old crowd together, put all the job titles in a hat, pass it around and see who gets what. Maybe they can’t remember who all was in the Old Executive Office Building the last time around. If anyone has a 1990 copy of the World Almanac, please send it to Austin. That should help.

Question Two: What got into Antonin Scalia?

For the past six weeks, every time I switch on the news it’s been historic this and historic that. Nothing I’ve seen so far compares to Justice Scalia’s statement of last Saturday, which I have to quote: “It suffices to say that the issuance of the stay suggests a majority of the court, while not deciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner has a substantial probability of success.” In other words, this election is going to George W. Bush and I’ll do anything to make that happen. Tell your grandchildren you lived through that one. It’s one thing for Babe Ruth to call his shot, it’s quite another when an associate justice of the Supreme Court does it. The key words here are “associate justice.” All through the campaign, it was speculated that one or more Supreme Court justices may retire in the next four years, maybe even 76-year-old Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Governor Bush has already announced that Mr. Justice Scalia is one of his favorite members of the court, so now Mr. Scalia is engaging is a bit of apple-polishing, trying to get in good with the boss. This leads directly to

Question Three: What happened to checks and balances?

When the Supreme Court ruled that the Florida Supreme Court does not have the right to interpret Florida’s self-contradicting election law, the balance of power swings hard toward the legislative branch of government. I don’t see that as a healthy development right now, given the extreme level of partisanship in legislatures around the country. This election already divided the country into competing camps. Now the Supreme Court throws away the rule of law just to fix one election.

Question Four: How will anything get done between now and 2004?

So Mr. Bush gets into the Oval Office. Let’s say Chief Justice Rehnquist retires. Are any of the 50 Democrats in the Senate going to vote to elevate Antonin Scalia? Not likely. What about Katherine Harris? What if George W. wants to scratch her back in return for the full-body massage she gave him in Florida? Are any of those 50 Democrats going to confirm Ms. Harris as ambassador to anywhere?

Question Five: Why didn’t they just count the votes?