The Washington Post has a truly bizarre piece wherein one of its editors attempts to joke about being on the Supreme Court:
First, I’m a woman. That seems to be the (understandably) necessary requirement, and I’ve got that one down. I realize I’m a long shot in a competition loaded with talented and credentialed women, and I wish those women well. The New York Times Web site has an interactive feature, “If You Were President,” that allows people to vote for their favorite candidate for the court, and it is rich with experienced female jurists and lawyers. (Sure, let’s delude ourselves for a while into thinking that we have some clout when it comes to picking justices.) Such distinguished women as Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are front-runners. (Bill Clinton is on the list of contenders, low down, but there’s no way that’s happening, sisters.)
[….]I’m used to being around a lot of men since I once was a sports journalist, but I have wonderful female friends, too, and if she’d have me, I would love to go to the symphony with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Over a glass of wine at intermission, we could think up ways to get some of the guys to take early retirement so we could get more women on the court.
Why would this be funny?
I’m new to reading about Supreme Court nominations, but I feel like I’ve dropped in from another planet, one where off-the-cuff smears of potential SCOTUS nominees play an important role in the selection process and where the whole idea that the court might someday be one-third female is either laugh-out-loud funny or a sign that affirmative action will destroy civilization as we know it.
What is going on? All of this makes about as much sense to me as Dijongate at this point.
bogart
The paternal nature of our culture is entering it’s final stages, that’s what’s going on. The white guys at the top can see the writing on the wall, and it scares the absolute crap out of them.
Ruemara
You’re obviously not from planet moron.
jvill
I’m with you on this one. One of the wingnut mooseknuckles on the other threads was arguing Gitmo isn’t U.S. soil because, you know, like, fuck you you pinko fucking fuck!
And now the party of freedom and individuality is telling people what condiments they can use at lunchtime.
Liberal fascism, huh? Ya, OK. Freaks.
I mean, the right is seriously coming so far apart I’m starting to turn from glee to concern. Not an “oh shit he’s got a gun” concern,” but an “oh shit I think we have to change Grandpa’s diaper” concern.
Wait. Oh. No.
It’s not concern, it’s pity. Yeah, pity. OK, that makes more sense.
dmv
Welcome to the show, brother.
I’ve been modestly (but only modestly) surprised at the vehemence with which some have resisted the idea that Obama should specifically seek to nominate a woman for Justice Souter’s spot. We’ve tussled over this in the comment sections of several posts over at Volokh Conspiracy. If you can make any sense out of what it is people are objecting to, or freaked out about, do enlighten us. It surpasses understanding.
asiangrrlMN
Um, I thought the piece was funny. In fact, I have a running joke with some of the other commenters that I’m throwing my hat into the ring for a nomination to the SCOTUS. As a bi Asian agnostic-deist socialist-capitalist female, I’d be a shoe-in!
I read the piece as firmly tongue-in-cheek. I didn’t read it as her pooh-poohing the idea that there could be another woman or two on the bench. I read more as her pooh-poohing the fact that there isn’t more women on the bench.
Oh, I’m not saying it very well, but I’d say it’s a total fluff piece. Just my take.
SomeCallMeTim
This time you’ve gone too far. That’s written by Jeanie McManus, the charmer from the late, great Tony Kornheiser Show. She can do no wrong. You monsters! Have you no shame! At long last, have you no shame!
asiangrrlMN
Damn fricking spam catcher! S o c i a l i s t !
Mr. Stuck
To the wingnuts, the SCOTUS is the ultimate battlefield in the Culture Wars. And since it looks like it will be the only one open to them for some time to come, it will be interesting to watch it in context with the GOP civil war also raging right now.
It is mostly the religious faction that SCOTUS appointments are so important to, and anyone with half a brain sees that for the GOP to become electable again, they are going to have to moderate on social issues. The country is moving past the wedge issues of abortion and gay rights etc… and will continue to as younger more tolerant gen x’ers come of age replacing old guard voters.
This one will be relatively tame compared to a Thomas or Scalia departure, when Peak Wingnut will get it’s greatest test.
Jess
Well, it would make it brutally clear that Roe-vs.-Wade is unlikely to be overturned. Any last flicker of hope would be thoroughly doused, and it’s often the thought of losing all hope that creates the panic. Once they get past that point, they’ll probably move on to sullen resignation. Not unlike the ritual of getting your kid into the bath.
brent
Why would this be funny?
Cause shut up! That’s why.
asiangrrlMN
Don’t know if this went through:
Um, I thought the piece was funny. In fact, I have a running joke with some of the other commenters that I’m throwing my hat into the ring for a nomination to the SCOTUS. As a bi Asian agnostic-deist so c ialist-capitalist female, I’d be a shoe-in!
I read the piece as firmly tongue-in-cheek. I didn’t read it as her pooh-poohing the idea that there could be another woman or two on the bench. I read more as her pooh-poohing the fact that there isn’t more women on the bench.
Oh, I’m not saying it very well, but I’d say it’s a total fluff piece. Just my take.
Nylund
Doug,
Its quite simple. Women tend to be in favor of women’s rights. IE, the more women on the bench, the less likely it is that Roe v. Wade will be overturned.
dmv
The idea that this is all related to angst about Roe has been floated a couple of times now. I don’t think that adequately explains it. Any person Obama nominated would likely not vote to kill Roe. I think Roe may help explain the deep fracturing of the Republican party post-Bush, with the fringe conservatives asserting themselves and pushing out moderates. There is real revulsion at the idea that the Court specifically needs more women on it. I think we’re in the midst of watching the Republicans having a psychotic break. The detachment from reality is profound. And not altogether unfrightening.
inkadu
You’ve got it all wrong. Having a male Supreme Court means women have time for the important things in life, like having babies and cleaning home for their husband. As a man, I gladly shoulder the heavy burden of high pay and career satisfaction so that woman can maintain their cherished place by the hearth.
inkadu
“Not altogether unfrightening,” summed up the Bush administration for me.
Now the monster is back in the closet, not under the bed.
asiangrrlMN
I still don’t see this particular piece as being against the idea of more women on the bench. It’s not a very well written piece, but I don’t think it’s arguing that a man should be chosen.
dmv
@asiangrrlMN:
Oh, I wasn’t talking about the particular piece linked to. I’m talking about the general reaction I’ve been witnessing (and contending with) elsewhere. You’re probably right about this piece. Seemed like total fluff to me.
Thankovsky
Luckily, relatively few people, outside of the most-rabid teabaggers and Jonah Goldberg himself, seem to have taken up that talking point, which contributes to my belief that the wingnuts are running out of ammunition.
As for the article, it strikes me as tongue-in-cheek and yet earnest at the same time. I don’t think it’s entirely a joke; I think the underlying message is, “The idea of more women on the Supreme Court is by no means as silly as the picture I’m painting here.”
Porlock Junior
I’m with asiangrrlMN, if I may take the liberty of saying so. I think the piece is mostly well meant, but a bit clumsy, so it really does have some triggers — like the very first words quoted — for people who have been watching the reactions of the Raving Class. But I mean, she winds up plotting with Justice Ginsburg to get some of the aging white men to forget about leading and following, and just get out of the way. What’s not to like about that?
And against any idea that she could be stereotyping the current Female Justice — could it be that Ginsburg, colleague of Scalia et al., has not entertained that idea?
asiangrrlMN
@dmv: Yeah, that I will grant you. The very idea of two more women on the bench seems to have sent the conservatives into a tizzy.
@Porlock Junior: Here’s a link to you on what Ginsburg herself has said on the issue. She’s pretty much saying the same thing.
Enlightened Layperson
Funny thing, but the Supreme Court seemed to survive OK when both Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were on it.
wasabi gasp
Now I’m curious to hear her audition for making wasabi a supremely tasty sandwich.
dmv
@Enlightened Layperson:
I don’t know. They had to have t-shirts made so people could remember which was which. So many women, just too confusing, really.
Thankovsky
@asiangrrlMN:
It really is a textbook example of a political Rorshach test, isn’t it? It tells us a lot more about how conservatives view women and the validity of women’s issues than it does about anything else.
asiangrrlMN
@dmv: Name tags.
@Thankovsky: Well, yeah. Women aren’t fit to make judgments that concern women’s bodies.
dmv
@Thankovsky: Well, yeah. Women aren’t fit to make judgments.
Fixed.
(I fail at HTML.)
Ned Ludd
I don’t understand why such dull writing regularly makes it into the nation’s newspapers. Considering that they’re losing readers, people don’t seem to be clamoring for it.
I regularly read several blogs where I know the writing is consistently good. But I don’t subscribe to a newspaper because the well-written articles are so few & far between. I hate to get halfway through an article and realize it’s going nowhere and the reporter has no idea what they’re talking about. Reading one of today’s newspapers involves wasting lots of time on poorly written articles.
Thankovsky
@asiangrrlMN:
Well duh, everyone knows that you’re all governed by your hormones. ;)
Seriously, though, from a politically cold-blooded point of view, I wonder what the Democrats could do to exploit this whole saga. I’ll bet they could chip a few percentage points off of Sarah Palin’s following. While a lot of women in that coalition are more rabidly pro-life/anti-choice than most conservative men, I can think of a couple in my own circle of acquaintances who would probably be disillusioned by the probable Republican response to a female nominee.
asiangrrlMN
@dmv: Ha. I think I fixed my own statement before you did. Or were you trying to fix it to something else?
Anne Laurie
Yes, say the fReichtards, but by then Justice O’Connor had proved she was *Responsible*, i.e., she was going to vote the Right way if not always the far-Right way.
(And if I were a bad person, I would add that by the time Ginsburg was seated, O’Connor had had a double mastectomy, thereby making her that much less susceptible to the horror of Thinking Like a Woman… )
asiangrrlMN
@Thankovsky: I am certainly governed by my hormones. Oh, wait. You didn’t mean those hormones?
I don’t know about the Dems taking advantage of this, though. The women who are left in the ever-shrinking GOP seem to be as intent on keeping themselves barefoot and pregnant as are their men.
dmv
@asiangrrlMN:
I was trying to strike “that concern women’s bodies.” It’s 2:00 am, and I’m a humanities nerd. Throw me a frickin’ bone.
asiangrrlMN
@dmv: Hahahahha! Your way is even funnier!
Thankovsky
@asiangrrlMN:
LOL, giggity-giggity-giggity-goo!
Yeah, that’s certainly the variable in this equation. Still, while I don’t know for a fact, I’d imagine there’s a noticeable difference between Republican women in the Deep South, and Republican women in the lower Midwest.
J. Michael Neal
Makes one wonder why Manny Ramirez was taking one of those all-controlling female hormones.
J. Michael Neal
Republican men want to be barefoot and pregnant?
I don’t think they have enough wetsuits.
Thankovsky
@J. Michael Neal:
Wouldn’t it explain absolutely everything if they were angry self-hating transsexuals, though?
edit: And with that pleasant thought, I’ll wish everyone sweet dreams. Night, Balloon Juice!
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
What is going is what happens when people who have nothing to say, start talking or writing anyway.
It’s what fills cable tv, and most other media, including the blog-osanna-danna-sphere, most of the time.
devopsych
How pathetic is it that there are still people who aspire to write like Maureen Dowd.
Indylib
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m with you. I don’t think she was making fun of the thought of a woman on the Court, I think she was making fun of men freaking out at the thought of another woman on the Court.
She didn’t do it particularly well, but I think that was her goal.
asiangrrlMN
@J. Michael Neal: You win! My brain is a’splodin’ now.
@Indylib: Yeah. Pure fluff, and not even tasty fluff at that.
Xenos
But they can’t bear to say that, or can’t be seen saying that. More code, just like dijon-gate. You need to be a structural anthropologist to work out what they mean some times.
The funniest, weirdest argument is the “I don’t care if the judge is male or female, I just want the most qualified!” The most qualified Supreme Court judge is like the most qualified President – there are hundreds of people out there who are smart and talented enough and educated enough to do the job.
The idea that “there are only one or two people who can do it, and oops, they happen to be conservative men, thems the breaks in our wonderful meritocracy” will somehow prevail with the 75% of the population who are either female or not conservatives is just not going to cut it anymore.
kommrade reproductive vigor
No fucking idea. I still have yet to see anything that supports the idea that Obama has said, suggested or thinks Souder’s replacement must be a woman, much less Sotomayor. All of this shrieking apparently stems from the type of gossip that wouldn’t make the National Enquirer because it was too speculative.
Of course, if Obama doesn’t pick Sotomayor they’ll pretend they forced him to drop her and engage in a congratulatory circle jerk. Still, if Obama nominates anyone other than a straight Caucasian male IT WILL BE THE END OF THE WORLD!11
WereBear
I think they obviously enjoy poutrage so much they don’t want to wait for an actual target.
TR
Speaking of which, Professor
PlumMustard is back at it. Again.TR
Crap, the blockquoting failed me there. That entire last bit is from the mighty leader of the war on … uh, something or other.
He keeps insisting that when he was getting his panties in a royal wad over the mustard issue — forwarding links on to major conservative blogs like Hot Air and Glenn Reynolds and begging for attention, giving his post ten separate updates, following up on it twice — it was all just a hilarious joke. Despite all the sound and fury, he really didn’t mean it.
But the liberal reaction to his posts — all the hysterical mockery and wanking gestures that he took as indignant outrage on our part — well, that only proves his very serious point about Dijongate that there is a deranged cult of personality around Obama, and that serious criticism like his argument about the mustard are shaking their very sensibilities to the ground and thus fearless men like himself must tell the very serious truth.
Gregory
@Thankovsky:
Justice Kennedy sure thinks so.
gnomedad
@TR:
If it sticks, I mean it, if not, I’m joking. Conservatism cannot fail; it can only be failed.
Dennis-SGMM
@TR:
According to the Professor, he was making a joke; “Ha! Ha! Funny joke!” and the libs just didn’t get it. Just as we didn’t get the humor of “Barack, the Magic Negro” and we continue to not-get Dennis Miller because liberals have no sense of humor.
For more conservative humor read the transcript of Dick Cheney’s interview by Fargo, ND radio host Scott Hennen.
Now that’s funny.
TR
Yep. What he doesn’t address is the fact that a lot of major conservative media types — Hannity, Ingraham, Steyn — ran with the story as a clear sign that Obama was an elitist.
So, if his post was a joke, did they miss it too? Or now that they’ve taken up the holy cause, is it no longer a joke?
kommrade reproductive vigor
“I’m Just Kidding” is the new “I’m Sorry I Was Misunderstood.”
sparky
@kommrade reproductive vigor: i have to hand it to the vast right wing noise machine–they certainly have their propaganda tactics down. makes me wanna get out my tinfoil hat so i can say there’s a secret manual they refer to.
someguy
Let’s be honest here. The only purpose of the Supreme Court is to get the policy results we can’t get the Congressional needledicks or overly cautious president to give us. So we rely on the court to impose equity and fairness where nobody else will. They are appointed for life and immune from any electoral backlash, so they are above politics.
So the nine justices are super powerful and don’t have to answer to anybody. This makes each of them, in effect, 1/9th of a President for Life – a President for Life that can overrule the Congress and the actual President we elected pretty much at will, as long as 5/9ths of the President for Life decides to take a position.
So why shouldn’t we treat the process of selecting a new justice just as ridiculously as we treat the process of electing a president or member of Congress or local dog catcher? It seems to me with the heightened powers of the court, we ought to be more partisan and shrill and silly and donate more money to this cause than to other campaigns because it’s much more important. Whoever captures the court decisively will have their way for a long time.
Unless you feel public figures should be beyond ridicule or something.
Col. Klink
I’ll take a stab at the heart of the issue here.
The Right backlash movement has lost the White House to a guy named Barack Hussein Obama.
The Right backlash movement has lost Congress to San Francisco Pelosi.
The Right backlash movement is losing to teh gays.
The Right backlash movement has lost to teh minorities.
The Right backlash movement is about to lose to teh stoners.
The Right backlash movement can’t keep modern feminism at bay.
The Right backlash movement is showing signs of losing the youth to teh athiests and agnostics.
Hell, the Right backlash movement is even losing young evangelicals.
Frankly, the Right backlash movement is losing so badly on all fronts that they seem to suddenly grasp that only conservative ‘activist judges’ can save their fat Limbaugh-esque asses now. They know the Gopasaur now walks among them; hence the incredible hysteria even before Obama shows his cards.
Violet
It’s Supreme Court Justice selection in the age of American Idol. Everyone’s got an opinion. There are multiple online polls for TruFans to spam. Spoilers are leaked. The judges/insiders comment to the press, and in turn their comments are parsed for tone and meaning. People debate pros and cons on online forums. Humorous commentaries (and those that try to be, but fail) are written. And everyone waits for the next performance…uh, statement from someone in the administration who might know something.
Tattoosydney
@TR:
When you’ve got Mikey the goat fucker commenting favourably on your blog, you know you’ve done something horribly wrong…
TR
Actually, they tend to like a slight variation: “I’m Sorry If Anyone Took Offense at What I Said” because it assumes they said nothing wrong and the other people are just hypersensitive PC thugs.
TheFountainHead - 'Easily Led'
Now, see, THAT made me chuckle. More of this please, less of that WSJ stuff.
burnspbesq
Well, this is interesting. Rosen as serial assassin of female judicial nominees.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2009/05/07/the-mediocity-of-diversity.aspx
I will have to say that I am somewhat taken aback by the notion that Obama has to appoint a woman or a minority to Souter’s seat. That kind of quota-bound thinking is representative of the worst kind of identity politics, and putting up with that shit is one of the less appealing parts of being a Democrat. That said, if the best man for the job is a woman, just put her on the bench and let’s be done with this foolishness.
Xenos
@burnspbesq: Why would it ever necessarily be the case that there could be just one person who is ‘best for the job’?
If you think about all the talented people, federal judges and elsewhere, who could do an excellent job, and the unavoidable imprecision of making fine rankings, and how subjective such a complex and human judgment must be, it become clear that ‘best person for the job’ is a bogus framing for this sort of thing.
Judicial nominations, no matter how carefully done, is a bit of a crapshoot. Let’s admit that and look for a good fit for our legal, political, and social needs.
Punchy
Did you just make this shit up?
TheFountainHead - 'Easily Led'
@Punchy: Well, it has a better ring to it than Hannity’s-a-deuchebag-gate.
Punchy
Maybe if they ajudicated topless there wouldn’t be such a clamor against so many women on the Court.
TR
@Punchy:
Nope, the genius behind that is the conservative moron here.
SpotWeld
The key here, as it is with a lot of right-wing humor (and sadly some of the left wing humor as well.. I’m looking at your Ted Rall); you have to remember, the general gist here is “it’s fun to be an @sshole”.
That’s the key lesson learned during the Bush (43) presidency, if nothing else.
LD50
The blockquoting cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Common Sense
Definitely with asiangrrl on this one. I think Doug may have a bit of an obsession with the WaPo (not that it isn’t vapid pap mind you).
LD50
Yes, and somehow we humorless libs just didn’t get it when Coulter joked about putting rat poison in Souter’s creme brulee, even tho she SAID it was a joke, yeesh.
eemom
yes, the WaPo piece is supposed to be funny — yes, it is a feeble, pathetic attempt at such, unworthy of publication in a middle-school newspaper, much less the once-venerated Post — yes, the topic of who is the next Supreme Court justice does not deserve to be mocked, much less by a moronic half-witted twit who couldn’t write her way out of a paper bag — and yes, the WaPo is circling the drain ever lower with each passing day.
I agree with EVERYONE today. : )
LD50
Jacobson gets a high class of commenters, I’ll say that:
Please explain how people who win are ‘loser’.
This is too retarded to even dignify it with snark.
David
How about a Justice Paris-Hilton-Nicole-Ritchie?
geg6
@burnspbesq:
This is MSM talk. The reality is that there are probably dozens of highly qualified people who would do a great job as a justice of SCOTUS. All of them with fine legal minds and different areas of expertise and experience to which they can point. The idea that only one of them is the “most qualified” or “best” is ridiculous and creates that false equivalency that the MSM loves so because it almost always leads to the conclusion that a white man is the “best” due to all other candidates really, somehow, don’t have the right types of experiences and talent, that somehow only the white men are always the most “serious.” You discount the idea that a woman or a gay person or a minority or an atheist most likely has had a completely different way of approaching a problem due to the fact of what and who they are. And that somehow those people don’t need representation of their views on the highest court of the land because, really, any of those good white male jurists will take them into account because they are so much more “serious.” Riiiiiight. Personally, I also believe that the Court should, at least a little bit, reflect Americans. And the current Court consists of 7 whites, 1 woman, 2 African Americans, 5 Catholics, and 2 Jews, which doesn’t begin to reflect America in any significant way. When the issues likely in front the Court will undoubtedly include discrimination, defendant’s rights, immigration, female reproductive issues, and the role of religion in public policy (among many others), it is good and right that a diversity of thought is represented and it is also good and right that the diversity of thought is considered when choosing a justice.
Dennis-SGMM
@burnspbesq:
You’re not going to be able to get a representative cross-section of America with only nine people. We should be able do better than eight men and one woman, five of whom are Catholics. There’s also a ton of subjectivity in identifying who might have the best legal mind or who might be the most able jurist so adding in subjective considerations of diversity doesn’t seem off-base to me.
cfaller96
I remember a bunch of moronic crap coming from the media when Obama was still deciding on his VP nominee. The media gets ZERO leaks from “no drama” Obama, and so they resort to this in an attempt to fill their pages and pass the time.
They are so lazy and pathetic. If they’re unable to get any good info on the nominee, aren’t there other equally worthy stories out there? Why can’t they cover those to fill pages and pass time?
Lazy and pathetic.
burnspbesq
@Xenos:
Umm, because you only get to pick one at a time? Seems that that sort of makes it inevitable that the one that is picked is perceived as “best,” even if the criteria for choosing that one are subjective (and perhaps even subconscious).
burnspbesq
@geg6:
Gee, thanks for ascribing to me a complete belief structure that I do not and never have held.
I can haz strawman, too?
BruceFromOhio
@burnspbesq:
I’ll settle for a nominee at this point. There’s corn to be popped for the “Senator Sessions Head Spinning Hour.”
@Xenos:
The vetting party better be looking at 1040’s a little more closely this time. I’ve had it with these tax cheats pulling down the cushy appointments.
@Jules Crittenden » Liar, Liar:
Stone the crows, Jules linked to the Juice. More Ann Coulter ads, stat! There’s planes to catch, and bills to pay …
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Tattoosydney:
OK, totally OT here, but what the heck is it with the random references to animals and sex that pops up here from time to time? (Not picking on you Tattoo but I’ve even seen it mentioned on the blog posts as well). Is there some inside joke or an allusion to a particularly explosive thread in the BJ archives?
harlana pepper
I’m not getting teh funneh, either, but if I had the privilege of going to symphony with Justice Ginsburg, I would not act like an ass. She seems like a lovely lady. I’d probably just sit there and nod politely, stealing glances here and there to see if she’s feeling well.
Persia
burnspbesq: And yet, women make up half the population and have only one representative on the Supreme Court. But this is somehow fair, because in all the land, only one woman meets ‘the qualifications,’ whatever they are? Bullshit.
geg6
@burnspbesq:
Not saying you believe all the things that I pointed out that the sort of thinking you advocated leads to. Just pointing out that perhaps the danger of picking some mythical “best” person is that this is where that logic almost always leads. If you don’t believe me, look around to who is most often saying pretty much what you said and what their conclusions are. The idea that it doesn’t matter if certain demographic characteristics are considered is a dangerous road, especially if you, like me, are one or more of those demographics.
Like, for instance, I’m not a dude.
John PM
I agree with those above who have said that there is no one clear best candidate for the Supreme Court. Most of the Justices on the Federal appellate courts would likely make very good Supreme Court Justices. Similarly, there are likely a good number of Federal district court judges that would be good choices. Ditto for judges on state supreme courts as well as some law professors.
Picking a Supreme Court justice is not a science. The beliefs (or lack thereof) of the President play a large role in who is nominated. Obviously if Roberts and Alito were not on the Court, there is no way that Obama would nominate them. So, assuming that the top male and female candiates are equal, in this instance the time should go to the woman. Similarly, assuming that the top white and non-white candidates are equal, the tie goes to the non-white. Ditto to heterosexuals and homosexuals/lesbians.
Colbert had a guest on the other night who made the very important point that of the 110 justices on the Supreme Court, almost all have been white males. Indeed, there have only been four female and minority appointments (Marshall, O’Connor, Thomas and Ginsberg), all in the last forty years. I supose you could say five appointments if you count Scalia as a minority due to his Italian heritage, which I think would be fun to do just to piss him off (Me: “Justice Scalia, how does it feel being only one of three minority appointments to the USSC?” Him: /flicks me the bird/).
Anyway, if I were president, my primary criterion in choosing a nominee would be to exclude anyone who attended an Ivy League school, either undergrad or law school. Seriously, there are 200 law schools in this country and the best and the brightest almost always go to Harvard or Yale?
BruceFromOhio
@burnspbesq:
Which leads me to wonder why HW picked Souter way back when. I look at Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and the idealogue is (cue the crapshoot sound effects) evident. But, Souter may have mastered his inner idealogue in favor of the written law and the precedents, perhaps even something more:
And thus …
Maybe I’m just cynical from the last four justices that went through the nomination mill, and all the posturing by Republicans to dress the Gang of Four up as something they are not – but it seems to me Souter is leaving some sizeable shoes to fill, and whether it’s a best man, woman, alien blob from Jupiter for the job, the bar is already pretty high.
My personal pick would be Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, for the sole purpose of driving Boss Limbaugh into the nuthouse for good. Appointed for life, much like the Boss, with no regard for the push and shove of political capital and futures, free to make wingnut heads explode over, and over, and over again. But in a nod to burnspbesq and Justice Souter, I put that into practice subjectively, with no legitimate premises. Most of Obama’s picks, tax cheats and Tim Geithner aside, have been okay thus far, and there’s no reason not to expect that to continue.
BruceFromOhio
@Persia:
Consider who made the most recent appointments. The ideology pedal was floored the whole way with no regard to the trip, the destination or the passengers. ‘Somehow fair’ never even enters into it.
Persia
@BruceFromOhio: No argument there. But that’s the point, isn’t it? We want the President to stack the deck, or at least counter-stack it.
LD50
Except that we all know that Obama will never pick a candidate who is as far to the left as Bush’s (or Bush I’s, or Reagan’s) candidates were to the right. So that opens up Obama’s pool of candidates considerably.
BruceFromOhio
@Persia:
Of course! I’ll be the first to admit to narrow-minded partisanship, particularly with respect to SCOTUS. Of the nine, only two have been picked by “my” side, so there’s a whole bunch of ‘counter-stacking’ to be done. That the legal brains eventually selected sport XX or XY chromosome ordering is kind of irrelevant to me.
I’ll not try to defend the indefensible, but looking at the 20th Century in America, it does not surprise me that women and minorities have had precious few opportunities at nomination to SCOTUS, much less getting seated. That the next justice, or two or three or four justices, could be of any demographic does not surprise me either. I like the suggestion that some other legal university make the cut, too.
I’ll admit, though, my interest is in the coming debate in the Senate. It doesn’t matter who gets nominated, the Incredible Shrinking Minority is going to entertain, and I look forward to that.
Tattoosydney
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch:
When myiq2xpost was busy dribbling on the thread with troll drool during the primaries, particularly late at night US time, he would regularly be chased away by a series of references to his bestial proclivities… I’m not sure where it originated, but there’s a discussion of Mikey here, and some speculation on the origin of the goat fucker meme in the thread…
I’m sure someone on here will know how it started….
Betsy
@burnspbesq:
I think this point got lost in the following discussion of “one best” justice, and it’s worth repeating: this Rosen dude has been smearing highly qualified candidates with the affirmative action claim since 1995.
JK
Jeanne McMannus is a horse’s ass and this op-ed is more worthy of the Onion than the Washington Post.
How pathetic is it that Maureen Dowd owns a Pulitzer Prize?
The Washington Post editorial page editor has proven his tone deafness by printing this garbage by Jeanne McMannus.
Persia
@Betsy: At least since 1995. Remember before that not much will be online so it might be harder to find.
oh really
Not having clearly specified her condiment preferences, McManus is obviously not qualified for the Supreme Court. I’m pretty sure I recall both Roberts and Alito stating resolutely that they prefer cheap, yellow, American mustard on the corn dogs they have five days a week for lunch (they were careful not to utter the word “French’s”).
I was really puzzled by this column. It wasn’t especially funny (at all), and I couldn’t figure out the need for it — on any level.
The WaPo opinion page has been so larded up with worthless nonsense nothing surprises me anymore. I’m assuming that Hiatt thinks that there should be another woman on the court, but since in every head-to-head selection process the white male will always be more qualified, there just isn’t a “fair” way to get more women on the court. Maybe McManus’ piece was a way for Fred to let us know women aren’t serious enough to be on the Supreme Court. Or maybe he simply has no standards.
Xanthippas
I’m pretty much prepared to blame all of this on Jeffrey Rosen.
In all seriousness, does anybody wonder why women (and liberals of all genders and orientations) get so defensive reading stuff like Rosen’s column? Because they know it’s a precursor to this sort of thing.