The early returns on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals' sweeping "recess appointments" decisions are not favorable. Kenneth Jost of CQ Press called it "astounding." The three-judge panel went "on a tear," he adds. Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker called it an "extravagant act of judicial hubris," in which "three federal judges revealed themselves as Republican National Committeemen in robes." Prominent separation-of-powers theorist Peter Shane posted not one, or even two, but three criticisms of the decision. Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board, he wrote, "is a little like a Rob Schneider movie -- the more you think about it, the worse it seems."

Even some right-of-center commentators have expressed mixed emotions. In a Federalist Society podcast after the decision, Chapman University professor John Eastman praised the decision as a check on executive power tyranny. Michael Rappaport of the University of San Diego defends the decision against charges of partisanship, and told me in an email that he found the analysis basically correct.
But Michael Greve of George Mason wrote that the opinion seemed "a tad doctrinaire." Writing in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), John Yoo, formerly of the Bush Justice Department, blamed President Obama for setting up the situation, but cautioned that the opinion "has jeopardized a vital executive power for all future presidents." John Elwood, also a former Bush Justice official, mildly noted that "the panel would have benefited" from actual briefing on the questions it decided...