I Usually Have Little Use for Lithwick…
[Posted by The Angry Clam]
…but her suggestions for a questionnaire that Miers is able to answer is hilarious.
1. Who is the bestest, smartest, coolest president ever?
2. Please provide the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of everyone with whom you have never discussed Roe v. Wade.
3. True or False: Barbara and Jenna totally don’t appreciate how cool their mom and dad are.
4. Is it correct for a comma to appear before a coordinating conjunction linking the parts of a compound predicate?
5. You have named Chief Justice Warren Burger as one of your favorite Supreme Court justices. Is it his devastating intellect, his soaring writing style, or his evenhanded administration of the court that you most admire? Where do Charles Whittaker and James McReynolds rank among your Top 10 Justices?
6. When you wrote “Dates Not Available” next to most of the events at which you gave speeches throughout your career, did you mean that you were unable to recall the dates of the events, or that Justice Nathan Hecht was stepping out with Priscilla Owen that night?
7. Best bowling score ever?
8. If Jesus and President Bush got into a fight, who would win?
9. Please name any state Bar Associations from which you have yet to be suspended.
Ouch. It hurts because it’s true.
— The Angry Clam
UPDATE FROM PATTERICO: Sorry . . . Ms. Lithwick still gets under my skin. But she has a great point about Burger. I’m still just appalled by that answer of Miers’s. Even as an administrator, Burger was God-awful. I dare any Miers defender to claim otherwise. Read The Brethren to see what I mean.
Anyone who admires Warren Burger for any aspect of his tenure on the Supreme Court is utterly clueless about the Supreme Court — period.
Contine your aversion to Lithwick.
PLEASE!
Stupid and not humorous.
Flap (cc77c4) — 10/21/2005 @ 10:57 pmPatterico: That book, which you’ve now cited several times, is not without controversy. I’d not take it as gospel. Some former Supreme Court clerks who were there at the time have sharply disputed some of its key assertions, and many of its subsidiary ones. I think it’s probably more reliable than the National Inquirer. But even viewed in its most favorable light, it’s gossip-mongering — tales told by oathbreakers in breach of their fiduciary duties.
Beldar (239bd8) — 10/22/2005 @ 1:22 amBurger, to his credit, did do what he was appointed to do: rein in the overly pro-criminal-defendant tilt of the Supreme Court under Warren. But there’s little else worth admiring.
Crank (c0f677) — 10/22/2005 @ 2:02 pmAnyone who admires Warren Burger for any aspect of his tenure on the Supreme Court is utterly clueless about the Supreme Court — period.
Umm .. he wans’t Earl Warren and we didn’t get Chief Justice Fortas or Douglas.
Kevin Murphy (6a7945) — 10/22/2005 @ 2:51 pm“I admire him because he wasn’t Earl Warren.”
Compelling.
But, then again, 1) isn’t that true of a lot of other Justices? And 2) wasn’t Rehnquist 50 times the Chief Justice that Burger was?
Answers: 1) Yes. 2) Yes again.
Patterico (4e4b70) — 10/22/2005 @ 3:00 pmPatterico: That book, which you’ve now cited several times, is not without controversy. I’d not take it as gospel. Some former Supreme Court clerks who were there at the time have sharply disputed some of its key assertions, and many of its subsidiary ones. I think it’s probably more reliable than the National Inquirer. But even viewed in its most favorable light, it’s gossip-mongering — tales told by oathbreakers in breach of their fiduciary duties.
I’d love to see links for specifics. You do realize that many of the Justices (notably excluding Burger, who declined to participate) were themselves interviewed, don’t you? You can call it “gossip-mongering” or you can call it “history.” No one Justice comes off smelling like roses. I’ve read it twice and browsed through it countless times, and it rings true for the most part. Dismissing it with a wave of your hand like that is, to my way of thinking, burying your head in the sand. Nobody should accept anything unquestioningly, but that book carries a lot of credibility with me. I’m going to continue to cite it. If you want to disbelieve it, that’s your call.
Patterico (4e4b70) — 10/22/2005 @ 3:05 pmI think Beldar is confusing The Bretheren, which was authorized, as Patterico notes, with Eddie Lazarus’ book that got him banned from a lot of judges’ courtrooms.
Angry Clam (fa7fff) — 10/22/2005 @ 3:10 pmWhat “oath” are you talking about, anyway, Beldar? It’s a pretty serious accusation, even if made towards anonymous people.
And are you suggesting that the Justices themselves owe someone some kind of oath not to talk about the Court?
Patterico (4e4b70) — 10/22/2005 @ 3:15 pmSupreme Court clerks take an oath of confidentiality that would make the Masons proud.
The Code of Conduct states that “A law clerk should never disclose to any person any confidential [read: everything in chambers, period] information received in the course of the law clerk’s duties, nor should the law clerk employ such information for personal gain.”
The Bretheren was, for the most part, done with permission.
Like I said, after Eddie Lazarus came out with “Closed Chambers,” a lot of people were infuriated that he would reveal the information in that book without permission.
That made a lot of judges extremely angry- Alex Kozinski has permanently banned him from appearing before him as an attorney, for example. Judge Kozinski is on the record as saying that, as a result of the book, “I have nothing but contempt for [Lazarus].”
Go take a look at this book review by Kozinski in the Yale Law Journal for more. Link action.
Angry Clam (fa7fff) — 10/22/2005 @ 4:00 pmDo you know when the oath started, Clam?
By the way, Kozinski says:
Again, many Supreme Court Justices themselves were interviewed for the book. Do they take an oath of confidentiality?
Patterico (4e4b70) — 10/22/2005 @ 4:19 pm