In which I repeat myself
If you found Robert Bork floating in your toilet bowl, he'd look right at home. I was just reminded by a Newsweek interview that he still exists, and I'm good and cranky about that fact. He's in that class of authoritarian that I don't respect enough to have a coherent argument with: I'd much rather get up in his face with a good hearty fuck you! - fuck you for what you've done to me and mine, fuck you for what you want to do to me and mine, and fuck you for telling us to smile and like it.
I'm going to keep going on that theme.
Q: President Obama has spoken of empathy as his key standard for choosing judicial nominees. What do you think of that approach?
A: I don't know exactly what empathy means. I suppose at a minimum it means you want a judge who will depart from the meaning of the constitution when a sympathetic case arises. It does seem to raise a warning that we're talking about a judge who does not follow the law.
Fuck you. Not following the unwritten laws that you want people to follow doesn't make her "a judge who does not follow the law."
Q: And I take it that you don't approve?
A: You are quite correct.
Fuck you. We don't approve of you either.
Q: What are your thoughts about Judge Sotomayor's nomination?
A: I think it was a bad mistake. Her comments about the wise Latina suggest identity-group jurisprudence. She also has a reputation for bullying counsel. And her record is not particularly distinguished. Far from it. And it is unusual to nominate somebody who states flatly that she was the beneficiary of affirmative action. But I can't believe she will be any worse than some recent white male appointees.
Fuck you. "Identity-group jurisprudence," my ass. I don't recall the last time that judgements in favor of rich white dudes, as so many of them are, got disdainfully labeled "identity-group jurisprudence." This is straight-up racism. And thank you so much for the additional diss at the end: I get the "and they're race traitors" coda nice and clear, thanks.
Q: Anyone you'd care to name?
A: I could, but you don't want the estate of these people suing me, do you?
Fuck you, you chickenshit motherfucker.
Q: As it's currently composed, this is sometimes called a conservative court.
A: I don't see it at all. It's a very left-leaning, liberal court.
Fuck you. It's a solid 5-4 conservative court, and that's being generous. Additional fuck you goes out to Sandra Day O'Connor: great career, then at the end stepped aside for enormous asshole Sam Alito.
Q: Could you elaborate? Compared to what?
A: Well, compared to what the Constitution actually says. They tend to enact the agenda or the preferences of a group that thinks of itself as the intellectual elite.
Fuck you. You're part of a movement that basically cares about the Second Amendment and the Commerce Clause: don't you fucking lecture us about "what the constitution actually says," much less about "intellectual elites," you sloppy-faced jockstrap carrier for Leo Strauss' "noble lie."
Q: How have you been struck by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito since they were appointed?
A: My general impression of them is quite good. The justice up there who I most admire is Clarence Thomas. I notice that when he and Scalia differ-it's not that often, but when they do-I tend to agree with Thomas.
Fuck you. You admire Thomas, Alito, and Scalia, three of the most reprehensible justices to come down the pike since Dred Scott? Who'd have fucking guessed?
Q: What's the responsible approach for Senate Republicans now to take if they share some of the concerns you've expressed about Judge Sotomayor?
A: I don't think they ought to filibuster. That would be very bad press for them. But I don't think deferring to the president is always a good idea. I would suggest that they air the issue so that people understand what the objection is. And then vote against, which will not affect anything. Or, if they air the issue thoroughly, some could even vote in favor of confirmation. But you've got to be clear what the problem is.
Fuck you. It's kind of funny how you don't think even your own party should act on principle, and it's so tender of you to care about respecting the institution of the filibuster now that people a tiny bit to the left of you have their hands on the nuclear option.
Q: Any particular issues or cases come to mind?
A: No. I've read them, but I no longer worry about those things, because I don't teach it anymore. In fact I refuse to teach constitutional law, because it's so obviously politics and not law. The incoherence of some of those opinions is astounding. If you want to know what the constitution means, you will not learn it from the court.
Fuck you. You ever taught constitutional law? I pity your students.
Q: Can you describe your judicial philospohy?
A: Well what it is is originalism. Which means you try to interpret the Constitution according to the principles as they were originally understood by the people who drafted it, by the people who voted for it. And that's neither conservative or liberal. But the court has moved so far to the left that any correction back to the proper central position would look like conservative activism to some people.
Fuck you. You don't get to count basic human decency issues as "moving to the left."
Q: Is there a principled definition of what judicial activism is?
A: Sure. A judge is an activist when he announces principles or reaches results that cannot plausibly be related to the actual Constitution.
Fuck you. I'd like to see you plausibly relate bleeding edge-issues to a pushing-250-years-old document without some reaching, interpretation, and wiggle room.
Q: On another front, the court has decided three cases against the Bush administration on Guantanamo, the most recent one giving habeas corpus rights to supposed enemy combatants. What do you make of that whole line of cases?
A: It strikes me as preposterous to begin to extend rights to enemy combatants that we never extended to captured Germans, Italians and Japanese in World War II. It's also dangerous once we begin to judicialize the conduct of a war. It can only make our forces less effective. But something has changed in the attitude. I think it was the invasion of Grenada, when a commanding officer refused to let the press come to the front lines, and a reporter said "in World War II we were allowed in the front lines," and the commander said "in World War II you were on our side."
Fuck you. In the first place, the Geneva Conventions exist for a good reason, and you deliberately chose a pre-Geneva example. In the second place, fuck your opinion of journalists, you sour-grapes jerkwad.
Q: Your own confirmation hearing in 1987 is often called a watershed for the process.
A: It wouldn't have been but for the fact that I looked like the fifth vote to overrule Roe v. Wade. And in modern politics, that is a subject that raises hysteria.
Fuck you. Abortion rights raise hysteria among people who think that women are chattel. The rest of us, not so much.
Q: Would you have been the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?
A: Oh, of course. It's one of the most corrupt decisions I've ever seen.
Fuck you. You would have voted to overturn, and you would have been personally responsible for hundreds of deaths.
Q: Was it your view that the law on abortion should be left totally to the democratic process?
A: I oppose abortion. But an amazing number of people thought that I would outlaw abortion. They didn't understand that not only did I have no desire to do that, but I had no power to do it. If you overrule Roe v. Wade, abortion does not become illegal. State legislatures take on the subject. The abortion issue has produced divisions and bitterness in our politics that countries don't have where abortion is decided by legislatures. And both sides go home, after a compromise, and attempt to try again next year. And as a result, it's not nearly the explosive issue as it is here where the court has grabbed it and taken it away from the voters.
Fuck you. As bradhicks pointed out recently, polling data shows that a solid majority of Americans support the status quo that Roe v. Wade instituted. Polls also show that state legislatures, in the absence of Roe v. Wade, immediately make abortion illegal in about half of the country, so that too is a lie.
Q: What was it like being in the middle of that confirmation hearing? It's fair to say that you were attacked from coast to coast.
A: It was really quite harrowing. It got to the point where I could not read the paper because every reference to the proceedings was really adverse to me. So I quit reading everything but the sports section. And then one of the sportswriters took a crack at me. [Laughs.] This kind of stuff was new to my wife, and so she wanted us to read a psalm every morning. I finally came to one about praying to God to break the teeth of my enemies. That seemed to be an adequate sentiment.
Fuck you. I'm not surprised that you prayed "God, please hurt my enemies" instead of "God, please show them the truth."
Q: I recall one of the people who were working on your confirmation hearings said that "you didn't really prepare for a knife fight."
A: The White House didn't do anything. They didn't offer any advice. In fact, the only people I talked to in the administration said I was doing fine. [Laughs.] I guess I wasn't doing fine. The way I was painted by the adversary camp and the news media and so forth, Sen. [Howard] Metzenbaum asked, "Why do women fear Judge Bork?" And [Attorney General] William French Smith responded, "Because they've been lied to."
Fuck you. Everyone recognized that yes, we'd been lied to. You were doing the lying - and that put a fear into us.
He seems determined to hit just about every right-wing authoritarian meme current, and a few that aren't, and tonight all I've got for him is fuck you. Robert Bork, the nation is better off for your never having darkened the towels of the Supreme Court, and may giant botflies come for you in your sleep.
Thanks to bossgoji, amblinwiseass, and ginmar for Angry Lessons!
I'm going to keep going on that theme.
Q: President Obama has spoken of empathy as his key standard for choosing judicial nominees. What do you think of that approach?
A: I don't know exactly what empathy means. I suppose at a minimum it means you want a judge who will depart from the meaning of the constitution when a sympathetic case arises. It does seem to raise a warning that we're talking about a judge who does not follow the law.
Fuck you. Not following the unwritten laws that you want people to follow doesn't make her "a judge who does not follow the law."
Q: And I take it that you don't approve?
A: You are quite correct.
Fuck you. We don't approve of you either.
Q: What are your thoughts about Judge Sotomayor's nomination?
A: I think it was a bad mistake. Her comments about the wise Latina suggest identity-group jurisprudence. She also has a reputation for bullying counsel. And her record is not particularly distinguished. Far from it. And it is unusual to nominate somebody who states flatly that she was the beneficiary of affirmative action. But I can't believe she will be any worse than some recent white male appointees.
Fuck you. "Identity-group jurisprudence," my ass. I don't recall the last time that judgements in favor of rich white dudes, as so many of them are, got disdainfully labeled "identity-group jurisprudence." This is straight-up racism. And thank you so much for the additional diss at the end: I get the "and they're race traitors" coda nice and clear, thanks.
Q: Anyone you'd care to name?
A: I could, but you don't want the estate of these people suing me, do you?
Fuck you, you chickenshit motherfucker.
Q: As it's currently composed, this is sometimes called a conservative court.
A: I don't see it at all. It's a very left-leaning, liberal court.
Fuck you. It's a solid 5-4 conservative court, and that's being generous. Additional fuck you goes out to Sandra Day O'Connor: great career, then at the end stepped aside for enormous asshole Sam Alito.
Q: Could you elaborate? Compared to what?
A: Well, compared to what the Constitution actually says. They tend to enact the agenda or the preferences of a group that thinks of itself as the intellectual elite.
Fuck you. You're part of a movement that basically cares about the Second Amendment and the Commerce Clause: don't you fucking lecture us about "what the constitution actually says," much less about "intellectual elites," you sloppy-faced jockstrap carrier for Leo Strauss' "noble lie."
Q: How have you been struck by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito since they were appointed?
A: My general impression of them is quite good. The justice up there who I most admire is Clarence Thomas. I notice that when he and Scalia differ-it's not that often, but when they do-I tend to agree with Thomas.
Fuck you. You admire Thomas, Alito, and Scalia, three of the most reprehensible justices to come down the pike since Dred Scott? Who'd have fucking guessed?
Q: What's the responsible approach for Senate Republicans now to take if they share some of the concerns you've expressed about Judge Sotomayor?
A: I don't think they ought to filibuster. That would be very bad press for them. But I don't think deferring to the president is always a good idea. I would suggest that they air the issue so that people understand what the objection is. And then vote against, which will not affect anything. Or, if they air the issue thoroughly, some could even vote in favor of confirmation. But you've got to be clear what the problem is.
Fuck you. It's kind of funny how you don't think even your own party should act on principle, and it's so tender of you to care about respecting the institution of the filibuster now that people a tiny bit to the left of you have their hands on the nuclear option.
Q: Any particular issues or cases come to mind?
A: No. I've read them, but I no longer worry about those things, because I don't teach it anymore. In fact I refuse to teach constitutional law, because it's so obviously politics and not law. The incoherence of some of those opinions is astounding. If you want to know what the constitution means, you will not learn it from the court.
Fuck you. You ever taught constitutional law? I pity your students.
Q: Can you describe your judicial philospohy?
A: Well what it is is originalism. Which means you try to interpret the Constitution according to the principles as they were originally understood by the people who drafted it, by the people who voted for it. And that's neither conservative or liberal. But the court has moved so far to the left that any correction back to the proper central position would look like conservative activism to some people.
Fuck you. You don't get to count basic human decency issues as "moving to the left."
Q: Is there a principled definition of what judicial activism is?
A: Sure. A judge is an activist when he announces principles or reaches results that cannot plausibly be related to the actual Constitution.
Fuck you. I'd like to see you plausibly relate bleeding edge-issues to a pushing-250-years-old document without some reaching, interpretation, and wiggle room.
Q: On another front, the court has decided three cases against the Bush administration on Guantanamo, the most recent one giving habeas corpus rights to supposed enemy combatants. What do you make of that whole line of cases?
A: It strikes me as preposterous to begin to extend rights to enemy combatants that we never extended to captured Germans, Italians and Japanese in World War II. It's also dangerous once we begin to judicialize the conduct of a war. It can only make our forces less effective. But something has changed in the attitude. I think it was the invasion of Grenada, when a commanding officer refused to let the press come to the front lines, and a reporter said "in World War II we were allowed in the front lines," and the commander said "in World War II you were on our side."
Fuck you. In the first place, the Geneva Conventions exist for a good reason, and you deliberately chose a pre-Geneva example. In the second place, fuck your opinion of journalists, you sour-grapes jerkwad.
Q: Your own confirmation hearing in 1987 is often called a watershed for the process.
A: It wouldn't have been but for the fact that I looked like the fifth vote to overrule Roe v. Wade. And in modern politics, that is a subject that raises hysteria.
Fuck you. Abortion rights raise hysteria among people who think that women are chattel. The rest of us, not so much.
Q: Would you have been the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?
A: Oh, of course. It's one of the most corrupt decisions I've ever seen.
Fuck you. You would have voted to overturn, and you would have been personally responsible for hundreds of deaths.
Q: Was it your view that the law on abortion should be left totally to the democratic process?
A: I oppose abortion. But an amazing number of people thought that I would outlaw abortion. They didn't understand that not only did I have no desire to do that, but I had no power to do it. If you overrule Roe v. Wade, abortion does not become illegal. State legislatures take on the subject. The abortion issue has produced divisions and bitterness in our politics that countries don't have where abortion is decided by legislatures. And both sides go home, after a compromise, and attempt to try again next year. And as a result, it's not nearly the explosive issue as it is here where the court has grabbed it and taken it away from the voters.
Fuck you. As bradhicks pointed out recently, polling data shows that a solid majority of Americans support the status quo that Roe v. Wade instituted. Polls also show that state legislatures, in the absence of Roe v. Wade, immediately make abortion illegal in about half of the country, so that too is a lie.
Q: What was it like being in the middle of that confirmation hearing? It's fair to say that you were attacked from coast to coast.
A: It was really quite harrowing. It got to the point where I could not read the paper because every reference to the proceedings was really adverse to me. So I quit reading everything but the sports section. And then one of the sportswriters took a crack at me. [Laughs.] This kind of stuff was new to my wife, and so she wanted us to read a psalm every morning. I finally came to one about praying to God to break the teeth of my enemies. That seemed to be an adequate sentiment.
Fuck you. I'm not surprised that you prayed "God, please hurt my enemies" instead of "God, please show them the truth."
Q: I recall one of the people who were working on your confirmation hearings said that "you didn't really prepare for a knife fight."
A: The White House didn't do anything. They didn't offer any advice. In fact, the only people I talked to in the administration said I was doing fine. [Laughs.] I guess I wasn't doing fine. The way I was painted by the adversary camp and the news media and so forth, Sen. [Howard] Metzenbaum asked, "Why do women fear Judge Bork?" And [Attorney General] William French Smith responded, "Because they've been lied to."
Fuck you. Everyone recognized that yes, we'd been lied to. You were doing the lying - and that put a fear into us.
He seems determined to hit just about every right-wing authoritarian meme current, and a few that aren't, and tonight all I've got for him is fuck you. Robert Bork, the nation is better off for your never having darkened the towels of the Supreme Court, and may giant botflies come for you in your sleep.
Thanks to bossgoji, amblinwiseass, and ginmar for Angry Lessons!