Historic moment

[fpb]

An important section of the community is for the first time represented on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. For the first time in history, a proven perjurer has been made Associate Judge. This is surely a progressive step, and we look forward to the first murderer. Or murderess.

Comments

[fellmama]

Oh, if you think there haven't been murderers, you haven't been paying attention!

[fpb]

Names please.

[fellmama]

Off the top of my head, Hugo Black was a KKK member during his early career; I believe he'd left by the time he was a justice. Roger Taney (and of course other justices of that era) was a slaveholder. And the whole Burger court has been called murderers for the Roe v. Wade decision.

It's all a matter of perspective. I think Kagan's wording was inexact, at best, but to call it perjury is a stretch.

[fpb]

Yes, she only put in yes when the original document said no. The merest shade of disagreement.

The only person whose personal status has anything criminal about it is the KKK member, and you will have to prove that he actually took part in KKK murders in order to call him a murderer. The others are, at most, guilty of perverting the law as judges. Not even the most embittered abolitionists ever said that Taney was anything but a kind and generous master to his slaves (that, alas, is exactly why he felt comfortable with his hideous decision), and while his decision, like Wade vs.Roe, was a judicial crime, it does not bear the name of murder. As for Wade vs.Roe, we should first agree that abortion is murder. Well, if you do, glad to hear it. If not, you should not concede so much to an opponent merely for the sake of polemic; it is a self-defeating strategy.

[shezan]

Kagan perjured herself???

[fpb]

And how! She did not just perjure herself, she perjured the Clinton Administration and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and perjured them in front of the Supreme Court. http://rightwingnews.com/2010/06/elena-kagan-writes-the-partial-birth-abortion-language-for-the-american-college-of-obstetricians-and-gynecologists-filibuster-her-updated/ I imagine that the Obama administration had to pay attention to all those tens of thousands of perjurers, demonstrating and sending in petitions on behalf of their girl. You have to admit that hers is a really thoroughbred kind of perjury.

[elegant_bonfire]

Basically I agree with you, but v. minor nitpick--really thoroughbred kind of perjury. The word you need here is purebred--thoroughbred specifically refers to a horse registered by the Jockey Club. My new kitty Monk is a purebred Cornish Rex, but he can't be a thoroughbred. /end pedantic nitpickiness for today.