UW Law has hosted Dr. Newdow twice, once last May and then in his lead up to the recent USSC argument. I only caught his first visit (I was an ACS intern in DC during the second) but I found Will Baude's analysis of his UChicago visit to be a good summary of Dr. Newdow at UW as well. The guy is smart, really smart (I mean Dr. Newdow, though I'm sure Will is smart too). He knew his arguments and cases front and back as well as anticipating arguments on the other side. And I completely agree with him. Especially that there wouldn't be this uproar if the side arguing "ceremonial diety" really meant that. One of the differences was that he claimed he didn't need his daughter to link him to the case. He thought there was some right of his that was being violated (he suggested when they recite the pledge at school board meetings, I think)

But, the man is wacky and obsessed. After his talk last May, our ACS chapter took him out to dinner. A good portion of that was spent with him debating my wife (a legal aid family law attorney) about the unconstitutionality of our family law system. He's very jaded that he doesn't have custody of his child. Not that I fault a parent for caring that much, but his arguments lose much rationality because of that emotion. He was also unreasonably peeved about the court imputing his income for his child support payments (remember that this is a man who has a MD from UCLA and a JD from UMich and used to be an emergency room doc who is unemployed by his own choice). But then maybe issues like this need focused obsessed people to take up the fight cuz the rest of us aren't going to do so.