From Judge Reinhardt’s 133-page dissent in the pledge-of-allegiance case, Newdow v. Rio Linda Union School District, the first dissent I have ever read that comes with a table of contents:
For many Americans, the current version of the Pledge is the only version they have ever known. Some individuals not familiar with our political history may even be under the impression that its language dates back to the founding fathers.fn4
—
fn4 See, for example, the words of former Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska: “If [the Pledge] was good enough for the founding fathers, its [sic] good enough for me . . . .” Eagle Forum Alaska, 2006 Gubernatorial Candidate Questionnaire, July 31, 2006, http://irregulartimes.com/eagle-forum-2006-gubernatorial-candidate.html.
I’ll bet there’s a Reinhardt clerk out there somewhere who is extremely proud of that passage. If you’re curious how the Reinhardt chambers learned of Sarah Palin’s questionnaire, I suspect it may have something to do with the story making the rounds of liberal blogs back in September 2008, nine months after the oral argument in this case. See, e.g., DailyKos, Huffington Post, Think Progress.
B.D. says:
For a moment I thought you were talking about Judge Reinhold.
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March 11, 2010, 9:49 pmbyomtov says:
I don’t get the point here. Is the quote inaccurate?
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March 11, 2010, 10:02 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Only an elitist would think that everyone should, when making historical references, adhere to the snooty standards of, say, an Ivy League law review, or a doctoral dissertation, or a junior high school term paper . . . and even the elitists should know that being correct is no defense to a charge of elitism, at least not in the eyes of real Americans.
If the standards of scholarship of the late 1700s were good enough for the Founding Fathers . . .
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March 11, 2010, 10:07 pmJ. Aldridge says:
Maybe she is thinking of the word “God” in oaths the founders approved of? (shrug)
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March 11, 2010, 10:09 pmOrin Kerr says:
byomtov,
I think it’s notable when a federal court of appeals judge with a well-established political view picks up a meme from political blogs and pokes fun at a politician on the other side in a pretty gratuitous way. It also screams “law clerk idea.” If you don’t think that’s notable, then I suppose we’ll just have to disagree.
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March 11, 2010, 10:09 pmSteve says:
I suspect you are right about the proud clerk. Having said that, being mocked by the dissent only serves to confirm that you’re on the right side.
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March 11, 2010, 10:09 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Orin, as I pointed out in the other thread, he also got in a dig at the Tea Party movement.
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March 11, 2010, 10:10 pmDrGrishka says:
Reinhardt’s citation is misleading. The question to which Sarah Palin responded read:
The answer was
It could be that she gave a stupid answer in which the “it” referred to the Pledge itself. That would be historically inaccurate. But the “it” could have just as easily referred to the phrase “under G-d.” If so, the answer would be completely plausible as founding fathers used such phrases all the time.
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March 11, 2010, 10:14 pmme says:
that’s is exactly why i, a lifelong Democrat and an Obama voter, don’t trust any decision from Reinhardt. there isn’t a judge, lawyer or law professor more corrosive to my belief in the US justice system than Reinhardt.
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March 11, 2010, 10:15 pmAnonsters says:
And everything we know about Sarah Palin screams founding-era historical scholar well-versed in the papers of that generation....
Anyway, I’m with OK’s interpretation of byomtov’s comment. I don’t think this is particularly notable.
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March 11, 2010, 10:17 pmfootnoter says:
What a sad reflection on Reinhardt. When a judge gets to doing this, it’s past time to hang up the spurs.
On the topic of a 133-page dissent with its own table of contents, on a rather simple issue, I’m reminded of EZ Rider’s dictum: “simple arguments are winning arguments; convoluted arguments are sleeping pills on paper. . . . when judges see a lot of words they immediately think: LOSER, LOSER. You might as well write it in big bold letters on the cover of your brief”
byomtov, imagine if Judge Bybee or Justice Scalia said “we have 50 states– a fact unknown to some Americans in power” with a footnote saying “see, e.g., President Obama’s remarks he had visited ’57 states.’”
Sure: the quote is “accurate.”
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March 11, 2010, 10:17 pmAnonsters says:
Read more Richard Posner, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.
If you want further corrosion, I mean.
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March 11, 2010, 10:18 pmDrGrishka says:
Anonster,
I don’t think you have to be a great scholar to know that the Declaration of Independence invoked Creator, and that George Washington declared days of Thanksgiving and prayer.
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March 11, 2010, 10:23 pmJack says:
Hey. Thanks for this post. I cruise alot of blogs just to see what I can find. I liked this write up you did and was just wondering if you have a subscriber page so I can link to it so I can read it at a later date? I did not see one — am I just overlooking it?
Jack
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March 11, 2010, 10:31 pmbyomtov says:
Orin,
So the point is that political jabs, however well-justified, are inappropriate in a court decision? OK. I can buy that. My impression was that you were claiming that Palin never said such a stupid thing. I guess I was wrong. Sorry.
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March 11, 2010, 10:34 pmOrin Kerr says:
Ah, got it, byomtov. No, I don’t doubt Palin said it: My point was only that it’s inappropriate in a court decision.
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March 11, 2010, 10:35 pmAnonsters says:
It was’t really in a court decision, though, was it? It was in a dissent.
And I’m not saying that just to be an ass. It seems to me like dissents are commonly seen as freer in the types of rhetoric they use, etc.?
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March 11, 2010, 10:40 pmMalvolio says:
This is something like the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. The quote was originally intended to be validate the antecedent of the syllogism that because Palin thinks the Pledge dates from the 18th Century, she is therefore stupid. When it was pointed out that what she said could (more plausibly) be interpreted as an accurate understanding of the Founders’ religiosity, Anonsters insists that because Palin is stupid, she therefore thinks the Pledge dates from the 18th Century.
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March 11, 2010, 10:42 pmSteve says:
It seems to me like dissents are commonly seen as freer in the types of rhetoric they use, etc.?
This is probably true as a general matter. However, when your dissent is 133 pages and includes a table of contents, it seems to me that you’re estopped from claiming that you merely intended to create a breezy piece of light reading.
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March 11, 2010, 10:42 pmRicardo says:
The phrase “under God” does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence (including any of the drafts) nor does it appear in the Constitution. The most famous early example of it being used was by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address, where Lincoln may well have deviated from his prepared speech by inserting the phrase when delivering the speech.
Is there any example of an actual founding father using the phrase “under God”?
(To address DrGriska’s point about the “Creator” of the Declaration of Independence, that word did not appear in the earlier drafts and was inserted later, possibly by Benjamin Franklin who, as we know, wasn’t the most religiously devout guy in the world. Also, an earlier draft contained language saying “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” and that was changed to “We hold these truths to be self-evident” which is a rather more secular phrasing.)
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March 11, 2010, 10:42 pmArthur Kirkland says:
The dissent’s point, and a good one, is that the presence of an homage to “God” in our Pledge of Allegiance is not a historic relic that might (much like an elderly former lout) have been seen as acquiring a respectable patina with age. It was the relatively recent product of unseemly pushiness that used our Pledge of Allegiance to shove some Americans’ superstitions down other Americans’ throats. Some people who ought to know better, such as a former governor, not only misunderstand the situation but indeed parade their ignorance like a drum major with smug one-liners soaked in fallacy.
That said, it is time to permit the libertarians to eviscerate the majority decision and anyone who defends it.
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March 11, 2010, 10:45 pmAnonsters says:
Who said anything about “a breeze piece of light reading”?
Syllogisms have premises and conclusions. Conditionals have antecedents and consequents. And validity is a matter of formal structure, not content. Just FYI.
I was saying DrGrishka’s interpretation was a stretch, and that given what we know about the person who made the comment, the interpretation Reinhardt adopts is the more natural one.
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March 11, 2010, 10:53 pmAnonsters says:
You should know by now, Arthur, that for the most part the commentariat in these parts is emphatically not libertarian.
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March 11, 2010, 10:54 pmSteve says:
Who said anything about “a breeze piece of light reading”?
I did. You quoted me, so you must have known that, though.
I think if you intend your dissent to be a legal or historical tour de force, including cheap (or not-so-cheap) shots at a politician of the opposite ideology tends to make you look less than serious.
On the other hand, if the goal of your dissent is simply to vent and you don’t really expect anyone to take you seriously (Roberts’ dissent in Caperton is a good example of the genre), then go nuts.
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March 11, 2010, 11:00 pmBob from Ohio says:
This reminds me when Sarah Palin talked about President FDR addressing the nation on television in October, 1929.
That was her right? I mean no one else in politics could actually think FDR was president in 1929 and there was mass market television then.
And when she said that Austrians spoke the “Austrian” language. That was pretty dumb of her too.
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March 11, 2010, 11:01 pmAF says:
Well, it’s not particularly gratuitous. It was probably just the first example that sprang to mind when Reinhardt or his clerk was trying to illustrate the point that many Americans don’t know “under God” was added to the pledge during the Cold War.
That said, it sounds partisan and should have ended up on the cutting room floor.
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March 11, 2010, 11:01 pmAnonsters says:
Your comment struck me as inferring from what I said that I was defending Reinhardt’s dissent as a “breezy piece of light reading,” which is why I responded the way I did.
So in other words the style, including the tone, of your dissent depends on what it is you want to achieve in writing the dissent.
Doesn’t that mean that it’s inappropriate to say that such comments as The Comment are “inappropriate in a court decision?”
In other words, it’s less a matter of “appropriateness” and more a matter of rhetorical chocies. Which was sort of my point.
[Whereas, say, “The majority are stupid stupidheads. And ugly!” would be an inappropriate remark either in a court decision or in a dissent.]
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March 11, 2010, 11:04 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Relative to what, exactly? It’s almost 60 years old. Compared to, say, the pyramids of Egypt, it’s recent, I suppose. But that’s a quarter the age of our constitution. It’s as old as Brown v. Board of Education — is that a “relatively recent” precedent? — and happened longer ago than the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn and the death of Herbert Hoover.
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March 11, 2010, 11:04 pmAnonsters says:
I agree. Although apparently Germans don’t really think Austrians speak German, either, so maybe not. :)
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March 11, 2010, 11:06 pmAnonsters says:
Relative to the Founding. Given that that’s what was mentioned in the quote.
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March 11, 2010, 11:07 pmegd says:
Good point. The Supreme Court should have no problem overturning “relatively recent” precedent, although I would suggest that anything from FDR forward should count as “relatively recent”.
But really, if this case becomes a well cited precedent, who (outside of history majors) is going to know who Sarah Palin was in 50+ years?
Can anyone recall the losing VP candidate from the 1960 election off the top of their head? If you saw a reference to a gaffe by Mr. Lodge, would you know what he was talking about?
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March 11, 2010, 11:15 pmRicardo says:
Let’s put it this way: the phrase “under God” is younger than the practice of putting your hand over your heart throughout the entire duration of the pledge. The earlier version of the pledge involved doing something called the Bellamy salute which was discontinued during WWII because of its similarity to the salutes of the Italian fascist and German National Socialist salutes.
(The originator of the pledge, Francis Bellamy, was a socialist, incidentally.)
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March 11, 2010, 11:18 pmAnonsters says:
The pic of the kids Heil-Hitlering the American flag is, um, creepy.
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March 11, 2010, 11:20 pmJ. Aldridge says:
Erroneous “precedent,” yes.
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March 11, 2010, 11:30 pmRicardo says:
They speak Austrian German which you can shorten to “Austrian” if you wish. The vocabulary can differ quite a bit from Hochdeutsch. Swiss German is even more different from what I can gather.
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March 11, 2010, 11:31 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Relative to the religious references that have been tolerated on the grounds that they are just centuries-old artifacts that qualify as historical boilerplate.
Brown v. Board of Education seems relatively recent to me. I have several friends who attended “separate but equal” schools (for a few years) and remember the change vividly; against a background of differing law that outnumbers the Brown era by three or four to one, “relatively recent” seems a reasonable description. A reasonable person could disagree, however, particularly in a society in which knowledge of history is a rare (or even scorned) commodity and in which Kid Rock and Lady Gaga are seen as innovators, Gary Carter and Phil Rizzuto as Hall of Famers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica as epic television programs.
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March 11, 2010, 11:46 pmAnonsters says:
Oh no you didn’t....
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March 11, 2010, 11:48 pmNunzio says:
A 133 page dissent over a 2 word prepositional phrase is silly.
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March 11, 2010, 11:52 pmArthur Kirkland says:
All I did was report facts.
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March 12, 2010, 12:09 amWilliam B. says:
The opinion attributes “One Nation, under God,” to “General Washington’s address to his troops in 1776″ (citing George Washington, General Orders (July 2, 1776)). See 3911 n.27 (page 43 of the pdf). I haven’t double-checked this myself.
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March 12, 2010, 12:12 amWilliam B. says:
Elsewhere, 3906 n.22, the opinion quotes the Washington address:
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March 12, 2010, 12:18 amAnonsters says:
G.W. himself was a pro-lifer!!
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March 12, 2010, 12:26 amrpt says:
“Segregation yesterday....segregation today.....”
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March 12, 2010, 12:27 amRicardo says:
William B, thanks for the reference. I found this which appears to quote Washington’s orders.
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March 12, 2010, 12:36 amneurodoc says:
OK thought it was notable that this federal circuit court judge chose to bring in Palin.
And it matters not whether there is or isn’t a law clerk proud of the Palin dig. What matters, that is if anything does here, is that Reinhardt saw fit to go with it.
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March 12, 2010, 12:39 amRoger says:
Judge Reinhardt has misquoted Sarah Palin. She was asked whether she is offended by the phrase “Under God”, not about the history of the Pledge.
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March 12, 2010, 12:41 amOrenWithAnE says:
I’m with DrGrishka in taking the vaguely-plausible generous interpretation.
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March 12, 2010, 12:49 amJ. Aldridge says:
What, states were powerless over such policies?
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March 12, 2010, 12:55 amAnonsters says:
Yes, but he originally interpreted byomtov’s comment as saying that it wasn’t notable, whereas he (OK) thought it was. So I was agreeing with the substance of his interpretation of byomtov’s comment, that it’s not notable.
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March 12, 2010, 12:56 amAnonsters says:
Given that it was certain states doing the segregating... no, they were quite powerful.
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March 12, 2010, 12:57 amRandy says:
I particularly love the quote on Wiki in which Bellamy refers to his own creation as ‘stirring words.’ I’ve never seen any kid actually ‘stirred’ by the recitation, except in an unintended way.
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March 12, 2010, 1:12 amleo marvin says:
But isn’t it possible for what Palin said to be an embarrassing display of ignorance and for it to have been undignified of Reinhardt to use a judicial dissent to point it out?
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March 12, 2010, 1:13 amzuch says:
I don’t begrudge Reinhardt his dig. Some people need to be educated ... and unfortunately it’s not just a few and not in only one place.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 1:14 amzuch says:
No. It confirms you’re mockable. Being in Stephen Colbert’s sights is usually not a good sign....
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 1:17 amneurodoc says:
It could be maintained, couldn’t it, that Austrians arguably speak “the ‘Austrian’ language,” that is the language spoken by the majority of people in Austria? (Harder to extricate her from her stupidity if she actually said, “Austrians speak Austrian.”) Americans do speak “the ‘American’ language” don’t they, that being somewhat different from the English spoken in the UK, Australia, South Africa, etc.?
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March 12, 2010, 1:19 amzuch says:
Occam’s Razor applies, I think.
Beyond that, care to cite any of the founding documents that used the term “under God”?
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 1:20 amzuch says:
If the existence of 50 (or 57 states) was material to some issue at hand, I’d be quite disappointed in Obama’s comment. In Palin’s case, her misstatement went to the crux of the argument, while it really doesn’t matter too much how many states Obama has visited.
But I’d bet that if you had said to Obama: “57?”, he would have corrected himself. Not so with Palin; she would have stuck to her guns.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 1:24 amneurodoc says:
You think wrong. If this were plausibly susceptible to only one interpretation, that is Occam’s Razor in fact pertained because that interpretation was the only one possible in the absence of any assumptions, then it would not matter whether the words were uttered by Palin or by a recognized scholar of American history. It is because those words were uttered by Palin that you think you can be fairly certain how to interpret them.
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March 12, 2010, 1:37 amRicardo says:
On “57 states,” here’s the actual quote from Obama: “I’ve now been in fifty... seven states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit but my staff would not justify it.”
So if we’re interested in being accurate (not a high priority among many), Obama implied there were 60, not 57, states as he said he was missing Alaska, Hawaii and one other state. Obviously, it was just a verbal flub of the kind any normal person would make by saying “fifty” instead of “forty.” If the ellipses properly represent a pause when he was speaking, it implies he caught his own mistake but didn’t feel the need to correct it.
I do admit I got a laugh out of the fake lapel pin featuring a flag with 57 stars, though.
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March 12, 2010, 1:43 amneurodoc says:
Is a 133 page dissent a whopper of one? Have others gone on at greater length than Reinhardt did here? (Imagine if he had decided to read it from the bench, which I presume would have been his prerogative to do had he so chosen.)
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March 12, 2010, 1:46 amCrazyTrain says:
No, federal appeals court judges do not read opinions from the bench. The panel that decides a case does not convene later to announce its opinions — it just releases them as they are finished.
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March 12, 2010, 2:05 amThe Rock says:
I think Obama was just making a joke to show how tiring the campaign had been. ;]
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March 12, 2010, 2:14 amyankee says:
You’re correct that she brought the history up sua sponte. Unfortunately for her, she got it completely wrong. Even if we (implausibly) interpret her use of “it” as referring to the phrase “under God” rather than the Pledge, she’s still wrong, since the phrase “under God” comes from the Gettysburg Address, not the Founders.
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March 12, 2010, 2:31 amRoger says:
Whatever the source of the phrase “under God”, Reinhardt still misquoted Palin. He changed the meaning of her sentence by inserting the bracketed phrase.
If Reinhardt wanted to complain about the relevance of the Founders, then he should attack the majority opinion. It quotes several of the Founders saying similar things, and cites someone who says Washington said “under God”.
But that is not the point. The point is to alter the Palin quote in a way that makes her look as stupid as possible. I think that it is particularly slimy and dishonest for Reinhardt to do this. Thanks for pointing this out. Now I can save time by not reading the 133-page dissent. I don’t need to learn the opinions of those who doctor quotes to slime political enemies.
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March 12, 2010, 3:10 amMalvolio says:
You’re saying it, but it isn’t so. There’s nothing about the statement to make the Reinhardt interpretation except that you think Palin’s stupid. And how big was the state you governed? How many people will wait in line to hear you speak?
Once in a while, I would like to hear a criticism of a successful conservative politician other than “stupid”. Reagan was stupid, Bush was stupid, Palin is stupid. They’re stupid, we’re smart, and if Americans weren’t so stupid, those conservatives wouldn’t win every single election.
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March 12, 2010, 3:42 amnotropis says:
Care to provide some source beyond snark for “everything we know about Sarah Palin?”
Or do we all just “know” that she’s stupid, because, well, everyone knows she’s stupid, don’t we?
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March 12, 2010, 4:00 amleo marvin says:
I doubt you’d have to leave this site to find several. Regardless, are you under the impression that criticisms of successful liberal politicians, even if they’re different than the ones leveled at conservatives, are any more accurate or flattering?
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March 12, 2010, 4:41 amPaul S says:
Other then mocking others, what do progressives do? Close Guantanamo? Universal health-care? Cap and trade?
Anything?
PS: And please don’t use the “broken government” excuse when Dems control all branches of government.
Cheers back,
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March 12, 2010, 5:13 amStephen Lathrop says:
Third grade for me. Extremely vivid memory, because, to its credit, the state of Maryland did immediate compliance, but unfortunately didn’t have the resources in place to cope. Massive overcrowding, textbook shortages, kids sharing a desk, etc.
The change in the Pledge is also vivid in memory. My family wasn’t religious. Even at that age, the local religious community seemed aggressively, frighteningly superstitious to me. The addition of “under God” felt like the school pressing me toward those religionists, and it scared me. I’m not sure I’m over it yet.
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March 12, 2010, 5:13 amRicardo says:
I don’t remember that many people calling Bush Sr. stupid. Nor, for that matter, Dole, Cheney, Romney, McCain or Giuliani.
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March 12, 2010, 5:24 amnotropis says:
Accurate? Maybe, maybe not. But flattering? Let’s go down the list:
Clinton — Brilliant policy wonk, but a horn-dog.
Gore — Brilliant policy wonk, but too wooden.
Obama — Brilliant, but perhaps too cerebral.
Stephen Breyer — Brilliant, but hard to shut him up once he gets going.
vs
Bush — Stupid stumble-bum who has a hard time stringing together a coherent sentence.
Palin — Stupid vain trailer trash.
Cheney — Ruthless and heartless s.o.b. who shoots people in the face.
Clarence Thomas — semi-literate Uncle Tom who’s too stupid to ask questions during oral arguments
Which do you think are more flattering?
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March 12, 2010, 5:32 ampublic_defender says:
This case is an example of legal theory v. practice. Sometimes an argument can be absolutely correct and valid, but you still have to say, “It ain’t gonna fly.” Judge Reinhardt, I respect you. On the Pledge issue, I agree with you. But it ain’t gonna fly. Give it up. Move on. Please.
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March 12, 2010, 5:55 amMike says:
Justifying Palin-hatred requires such elaborate intellectual acrobatics! It must be exhausting.
Remember when Charlie Gibson interviewed Palin? Gibson accused her of saying that Iraq was a holy war, based on a deliberate misquote. Palin questioned whether the quote was accurate, but the ABC editor cut that part out. Then Palin explained what she had said, the context, and that she had drawn it from Lincoln.
And now some of you are certain that Palin doesn’t understand her own words, and doesn’t know anything about the founding fathers.
This new sliming of Palin requires a complete corruption of basic English grammar. Under the Palin-hating theory, the syllogism is:
1. Do you like pickles on your hamburgers?
2. No, I don’t like them.
3. Ah, so you admit that you don’t like hamburgers!
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March 12, 2010, 6:00 amleo marvin says:
If you think those are the corresponding criticisms leveled against those Democrats, you must not own an AM radio or read ring wing blogs, except this one. And when you’re on this site you must carefully avoid the comment threads.
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March 12, 2010, 6:41 amaRT35 says:
I am curious: how is it that the plaintiff students in this case were able to proceed anonymously (i.e., as Jane Doe plaintiffs), whereas in the 9th Circuit case discussed last week involving a challenge to the racial preferences in admissions at the Kamehameha Schools — KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS/BERNICE PAUAHI BISHOP ESTATE — the court threw out the case because the plaintiffs refused to identify themselves in the complaint? This seems a strange inconsistency. Is it because no one raised the issue in this Newdow case?
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March 12, 2010, 6:58 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
What I love about the opinion is Reinhardt’s newfound fidelity to Supreme Court precedent.
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March 12, 2010, 7:15 amPersonFromPorlock says:
Well, Judge Reinhardt has made a funny at the expense of someone with a much bigger audience than his own, who may yet be in a position to hurt him. What does this tell us about his judgement? “Fearless” is one word, but “feckless” is another....
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March 12, 2010, 7:17 amSam Heldman says:
It’s just part of the modus operandi in the Ninth Circuit, I guess. A few years ago, Volokh Conspiracy favorite Judge Kozinksi was on quite a roll with his Gore and Clinton jokes, in ways that were much snottier and much more gratuitous than this.
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March 12, 2010, 7:28 amcboldt says:
– A few years ago, Volokh Conspiracy favorite Judge Kozinksi was on quite a roll with his Gore and Clinton jokes, in ways that were much snottier and much more gratuitous than this. –
I’d like to read some of those. My google fu is mediocre on that front, “site:volokh.com kozinski gore 2007,” for example, results in 170 or so matches. I looked at about 40 of them before giving up.
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March 12, 2010, 7:51 amSam Heldman says:
cboldt, two of Judge Kozinski’s efforts are linked here from my old blog:
link. I found and blog-noted another one not long after that.
[edited to add: the links to ninth circuit opinions don’t seem to work anymore. the first opinion i noted was Kremen v. Cohen, 325 F.3d 1035. ]
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March 12, 2010, 8:07 amFantasiaWHT says:
“See, for example”?
What’s wrong with
“See, e.g.,”?
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March 12, 2010, 8:07 amCheckEnclosed says:
VC Buries the Lede!
The phrase “133 page dissent” says it all.
Given how often the issue of persuasive legal writing comes up in the VC, it is so, so comforting to see the standards that the audience for our appellate briefs lives up to. No doubt about 120 pages of the dissent could be replaced by the phrase “I like being self-indulgent, and so do my clerks.” (Life Tenure, Dude!)
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March 12, 2010, 8:36 amcboldt says:
– first opinion i noted was Kremen v. Cohen –
Thank you for the link to your observations and opinion, and the lead to Kozinski’s writing. The Gore one is indeed lame and gratuitous; the Lewinski one might be too (I didn’t look to see if, in context, “no relation” was a worthwhile observation).
I’m bothered by jokes in opinions too, but only a tiny bit. On the positive side, they illuminate personality and bias.
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March 12, 2010, 8:39 amHenry says:
“Under God” originated with Bracton back in the 13th century. The quote from Bracton is carved into the pediment of Langdell Library at Harvard Law School — Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et Lege.
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March 12, 2010, 8:40 amepluribus says:
What does this tell us about Palin’s intentions? If she should, God forbid (an old phrase well known to the Founders), become president, will she be mean as well as stupid and set about “hurting” judges who have offended her?
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March 12, 2010, 9:06 amTNeloms says:
Very interesting.
Here’s a link to the first one: http://openjurist.org/325/f3d/1035/kremen-v-cohen-vp-llc. Scroll down to the very bottom and click on the 18 to see the context of the “Nor to Al Gore, for that matter” footnote. I agree that it’s similar to quoting Palin, but maybe more light-hearted.
And here’s a link to the second: http://openjurist.org/310/f3d/1118/flowers-v-carville. The “no relation” comment is even more gratuitous here.
Do you have a link to the subsequent blog post you mentioned?
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March 12, 2010, 9:10 amAnton says:
Remind me, how many times has Reinhardt (and therefore his clerks) been called morons by the Supreme Court? Oh, right.
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March 12, 2010, 9:26 amAndy Patterson says:
So, you think that J Scalia has never done a snarky dig at the other side, or at liberals in general, in his opinions or dissents?
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March 12, 2010, 9:31 amJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
Why should the “Pledge” even exist? Can anyone point to the existence of a “Pledge of Allegiance” type of oath (not an Oath of Office) prior to 1865?
The whole thing is unconsitutional.
I make no secret that I am a Christian when I think that it is relevant to the discussion. The “under God” part does seem to me to “establish a religion” and a pagan religion at that. Since “God” in the pledge refers to no particular diety and represents Jehova, Jesus, Krishna, Allah, etc., it is a literary symbol for an idol. Nonsense, some may say. Well, how would people react if the “Pledge” stated “one nation under Yahweh” or “one nation under Jesus Christ” or “one nation under Ahura Mazda”?
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March 12, 2010, 9:45 amAnonsters says:
I confess, I do think Sarah Palin is stupid.
What I don’t understand is why certain conservative commentators here are so butthurt that I think so.
You think Barack Obama is an evil, socialist dictator out to control the lives of regular, ordinary Americans, in order to hand the country over to the Muslin terrorists at the first opportunity.
And yet I don’t care that you think that. I just shrug my shoulders and, sometimes, laugh.
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March 12, 2010, 9:54 amMark Field says:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer IS epic television.
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March 12, 2010, 10:04 amjccamp says:
Bob from Ohio -
“This reminds me when Sarah Palin talked about President FDR addressing the nation on television in October, 1929. ”
Did it remind you of Biden saying “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television...”
You’re mixing your vice-presidential candidates. But I’d agree, it was an incredibly stupid statement.
“And when she said that Austrians spoke the “Austrian” language. That was pretty dumb of her too.”
Well, quoting from Bloomberg News, during an Obama press conference in his first European trip, in 2009:
At a news conference afterward, Obama said his debut on the international stage had convinced him that “political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian...”
So, Bob, I guess you think President Obama is pretty dumb, yes?
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March 12, 2010, 10:08 amDarel Finkbeiner says:
I find it interesting that the very first thing done in the opinion was to draw a line directly from the Pledge to the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence. I mean, this Justice Carlos Bea must be an utter moron to do such a thing. Likely uneducated, thoughtless, ignorant of history... you know, all the things Sarah Palin is.
I mean, he got his J.D. from some obscure “school” (Stanford), likely a correspondence/homestudy course directed by religious nuts. He’s SPANISH, not even a natural born American, what can he possibly know about American history?
( I love Conspiracy commenters... they continually renew my lack of faith in humanity )
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March 12, 2010, 10:14 amDave N. says:
jccamp,
Having read Bob from Ohio’s comments in the past, I think he was deliberately attributing stupid statements various Democrats have made to Sarah Palin — and was planning on coming back later and doing exactly what you just did.
(My impression is that Bob from Ohio is rather conservative)
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March 12, 2010, 10:15 amJD says:
Re: dissents with tables of contents (since I know that’s what everyone here wants to talk about!), I’m aware of one — Judge Randolph’s partial dissent in Checkosky v. SEC, 23 F.3d 452 (D.C. Cir. 1994). But that’s a 30-pager, svelte by comparison.
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March 12, 2010, 10:23 amjccamp says:
I find it mildly ironic that Stephen Reinhardt, who has perhaps set new world class standards in the category of reversals of a Federal appellate judge, finds it amusing to snark about a conservative political figure’s mis-statements, and chooses to do so with a quote subject to a more generous interpretation than he spins it.
I’d call it sophomoric, but typical.
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March 12, 2010, 10:25 amjccamp says:
Bob —
Oops. Sorry. I should have known. And I shouldn’t have been so peevish in any case. And this in a thread essentially about smart-ass foot-in-mouth disease. [red-face]
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March 12, 2010, 10:29 amDudeman says:
Dangerous to use sarcasm Bob, we all know that it was a different vice presidential candidate that talked about FDR being on television.
It is our president who thinks Austrian is a language.
Bob, think of the Palin haters who are out there and now confused. Let’s focus on her comment that she can see Russia from her house. The “her” in the preceeding sentence being Tina Fey, not Ms. Palin.
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March 12, 2010, 10:41 amBob from Ohio says:
Thanks, Dave N., you ruined my surprise!
Yes, my cunning plan worked like a charm.
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March 12, 2010, 10:52 amFrank Drackman says:
Call me when she refers to the “57 States”
or says you can’t own a 7–11 in Delaware if you don’t have an Indian Accent,
or asks a quadriplegic in a wheel chair to stand up,
or says Barak(peace be upon Him) is the first mainstream Black Candidate who’s Clean, and Bright, and Articulate, I mean, thats a Storybook, Man!!!
I voted for Al Sharpton in the 04′ Primary, he’s pretty Bright and Articulate.
Frank “Palin/Chaney in O-12′” Drackman
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March 12, 2010, 11:07 amFrank Drackman says:
Austria??? Well then, G’day Mate!Lets put another shrimp on the Barbie!!
am I the only one who thinks of “Dumb and Dumber” whenever I see those 2 idiots together?
Barak(Peace be upon Him) and Biden, I mean, Harry & Lloyd were just actors.
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March 12, 2010, 11:10 amShelbyC says:
Huh. I woulda thought the existence of 50 states was pretty material to pretty much all of the issues facing our nation today. :-).
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March 12, 2010, 11:13 amSarcastro says:
This is why answering your Census is vital.
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March 12, 2010, 11:17 amArthur Kirkland says:
Rod Blagojevich was governor of a state in which suburbs have larger populations than Alaska’s; Mark Sanford still is governor of a state eight times as large as Alaska. People wait in line to see WWE ‘rasslers, members of the Insane Clown Posse, Miley Cyrus, Ludacris and Zig Ziglar open their mouths. The usefulness of the “how big a state” or “wait in line” standards eludes me.
I have not encountered much skepticism about Mitt Romney’s intelligence, or John McCain’s character, or Rudy Giuliani’s smarts, or Tommy Thompson’s character, or Fred Thompson’s intelligence. Palin is derided because she presents as an undereducated, scantly accomplished and dim person who compounds those traits with disdain of knowledge and education — not because she is conservative, Republican or a candidate.
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March 12, 2010, 11:19 amKen Arromdee says:
I’m not sure what you think the alternative is. Never being bothered by attacks on politicians?
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March 12, 2010, 11:23 amRicardo says:
I’m no Biden fan, but I’ve always found Republican attacks on Biden for making the rather unremarkable observation that certain occupations attract disproportionate numbers of people of a certain ethnicity to be a bit strange if not hypocritical. Not only are many of those 7–11 owners Indian nationals, but they tend to hail from the same state within India (Gujarat) and share one of a handful of sub-caste affiliations, which is why many of them have the last name Patel.
It reminds me of The Onion article, “Chinese Laundry Owner Blasted For Reinforcing Negative Ethnic Stereotypes”. The selective embrace of PC rhetoric is pretty transparent.
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March 12, 2010, 11:27 amFrank Drackman says:
My Bad Ricky, I thought by “Indian” he meant “American Indian” and not the Red-Dot-on the Forehead variety...
Thanks for clearin that up for me,
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March 12, 2010, 11:33 amRealistLiberal says:
Ditto
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March 12, 2010, 11:44 amRicardo says:
Franky, I think the problem is that you don’t actually know anything about the subject one way or the other.
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March 12, 2010, 11:44 amAnonsters says:
I don’t understand why this particular attack on a politician is so galling, particularly when, as Arthur Kirkland pointed out, Sarah Palin clearly adopts a persona that involves, among other things, lack of education. She’s just a down-homey, gosh-darney, real-America apple pie American, simple and unrefined, like the heartland, not one of them educated liberal East Coast elites. And it’s clear that’s how she wants to be perceived. So be it.
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March 12, 2010, 11:54 ambpbatista says:
In Reinhardt’s world is it unconstitutional to display, read or require students to memorize or learn the Declaration of Independence, Gettysburg Address or Lincoln’s Second Inaugural since all of these documents expressly reference God. Indeed, the Gettysburg Address contains the phrase “under God”.
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March 12, 2010, 12:03 pmSteve says:
I find it at least plausible that Palin was referring generally to the fact that the Founders often referenced God in political contexts, as opposed to claiming that the current text of the Pledge of Allegiance dates to 1776. In this context, her quote would be “If [acknowledging God] was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.”
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March 12, 2010, 12:03 pmmooglar says:
Okay, come on now. There’s more talk about Sarah Palin than John Edwards because Palin is still a potential candidate for office, just had a big book tour, and took a gig with Fox News. Edwards is done for. He’s in seclusion and his political career is over. And there still is talk about Edwards, BTW, with his aide’s book out and all that. Also, by and large, liberals don’t support him anyway; we’re pretty much done with that guy.
Biden ain’t too terribly smart either. I’ll give you that. They called him “Gaffemaster Flash” on The Daily Show last night, which was pretty funny. And I will give you that Biden gets less flack for being dumb than Palin does. But I suspect that are a lot of reasons for that beyond a simplistic “he’s liberal and she’s conservative” dynamic. I think how they handle it matters (Biden is pretty humble about his gaffes and generally admits them; Palin doubles-down on hers), that Palin is a woman and gets unfairly harshly judged, etc. etc.
But about the comments about how (some) conservatives are portrayed as dumb in the press while liberals are portrayed as smart, well, let’s see, one party’s nominees include obvious eggheads like Dukakis and Kerry and the other party’s nominees include Reagan (an actor) and George W., a failed oil-man who (by his own words) doesn’t like complicated policy discussions. So, may I submit, that whether conservatives are really dumber than liberals or not, that these images aren’t just created by the media. Politicians on the right make a concerted, intentional effort to seem “down to earth” and like someone you’d want to have a beer with, and politicians on the left have made the same sort of effort to appear well-versed in policy. And they reinforce either others’ stereotypes, BTW, without the media prodding. Republicans love to portray Democrats as ivory-tower eggheads who don’t understand “real people,” for instance. Since the Republicans feel it is a good strategy to portray their opponents as being too brainy, they really have little to complain about when liberals are seen as smarter.
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March 12, 2010, 12:11 pmzuch says:
Occam’s Razor is not “the only possible solution is the correct one” (I believe that’s Holme’s Pipe). Occam’s Razor is “the simplest answer is most likely” (or more specifically and restrictively, “don’t introduce unnecessary assumptions/complications”). In this case, you are adding assumptions as to some other factual matter that Palin supposedly was addressing.
Really, do you suggest that Palin is some secret history buff? It beggars the imagination. “What Founding Fathers do you read?” “Why, all of them!” ;-)
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:17 pmAnonsters says:
I second this confession from the left. I routinely facepalm at things Biden says.
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March 12, 2010, 12:17 pmzuch says:
Say goodbye to FauxSnooze then.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:20 pmMN says:
The dissent also gets in a thinly veiled dig at Chief Justice Roberts and the “balls and strikes” analogy he offered in his confirmation hearing. Footnote 50 in the dissent reads:
“In football, a Hail Mary is a last-minute desperation pass, the most
famous being Doug Flutie’s, then a quarterback for Boston College, in a
game against Miami in 1984. Sports analogies describing judging appear
to be all the rage these days. Some have merit. Others, especially some
involving baseball, clearly do not.”
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March 12, 2010, 12:22 pmDangerMouse says:
It’s your own prejudice that insists that simple, unrefined, heartland real-America apple pie people are not educated. Let me clue you in bub: acting like some latte-sucking snob from the Upper West Side doesn’t mean you’re educated or intelligent. I should know, as those morons are my neighbors.
Maybe you can educate them in one place, so that they learn the error of their ways. Call it a “re-education camp.” Right?
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March 12, 2010, 12:24 pmzuch says:
Oh, really? He cites this:
which says this:
The only difference is Reinhardt’s insertion of a bracketed [“the Pledge”] here to specify the subject of the word “it” (along with a link to the full quote for those interested in checking it out). When Palin didn’t specify just the phrase (in isolation — and not, as asked, specifically in the Pledge, and she continues in mentioning “our Pledge of Allegiance”, the natural parsing is to assume that she was talking about the subject of the question, which is to say, the Pledge with those words.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:32 pmAnonsters says:
I’m well aware.
But are you denying that Palin cultivates a sort of know-nothing air about herself? And that she self-consciously projects as simple, unrefined, heartland real-America apple pie? I think she does both. I don’t think the two are necessarily connected, except by her own persona.
Incidentally, I would object to the notions of refinedness, of “real-America,” and of apple pie. I myself am a very simple person. I’m not terribly refined. I’m from the Deep South, but I live in D.C. now. And I hate pie (except for Boston Creme; I’m more of a cheesecake man, really). And you can conclude pretty much nothing from all that I’ve just said about myself, because I don’t claim that any of those things carry, or should carry, any weight in evaluating my political positions, my character, or anything else.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, does. She sets up these dualities in order to exclude those who fall on the “wrong” side. Simple is good, not-simple is bad. Unrefined is good, refined is bad. Real-America is good, the Coasts are bad. It’s all nonsense.
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March 12, 2010, 12:35 pmJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
And if the guv’mint decides to, somehow, incorporate “under Hail Mary” into an oath of allegiance ... ?
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March 12, 2010, 12:36 pmzuch says:
OK. Reagan was dishonest. Dubya was dishonest, hypocritical, and evil. Palin is an extreme RW whack-job. Happy?
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:37 pmCCTrojan says:
Well those are EXACTLY the corresponding criticisms I’ve heard leveled against those Democrats.
Some extreme elements might level harsher criticisms, but they do that to the Republicans as well. Have you never heard anyone describe Bush as evil or a murderer?
I have to agree with notropis on this one.
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March 12, 2010, 12:37 pmzuch says:
“2008” ring a bell?
I am interested, however, in your metric for “successful” WRT Dubya ... or even Palin.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:39 pmzuch says:
Yes, indeed. How can we say that about a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School ... oh ... waiddaminnit.
Be honest: Palin plays the “I’m just a dumb hick” role so well because she is a dumb hick. People sense authenticity.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:43 pmyankee says:
That’s not quite right, what she said is that small towns are “the real America,” leaving most of the people in this country as part of fake America.
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March 12, 2010, 12:47 pmDangerMouse says:
Be honest: Palin plays the “I’m just a dumb hick” role so well because she is a dumb hick. People sense authenticity.
People sense authenticity, and people are sensing that she is honest. They like that she’s speaking plainly and not trying to confuse them with empty rhetoric. You’d be surprised that many people reject her merely for her accent, and make the idiotic assumption that her accent means she is stupid.
And people also sense that Obama is a lying, smarmy, stuck up, snobby prig lib who thinks he knows better than all of us because he was a college professor or something, and who has no problem paling around with people who openly reject all of middle-America, and has no problem berating our country’s allies while sucking up to its enemies. They are beginning to despise Obama because he’s a snake.
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March 12, 2010, 12:51 pmzuch says:
I spotted it but didn’t take the bait and ignored it, waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop. Seems a fair tactic. But not particularly successful from what I saw above.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:51 pmzuch says:
Yes. People defended the use of “Austrian” (without referencing Obama, or pointing out who it was that said “Austrian”). What do you make of this?
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:53 pmzuch says:
How so? Outside of number of Senators, perhaps. But how would it make a difference, and in what way? And WTF would it have to do with the subject of any question under dispute in the context of Obama’s statement?
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 12:56 pmbyomtov says:
Dangermouse,
It’s your own prejudice that insists that simple, unrefined, heartland real-America apple pie people are not educated. Let me clue you in bub: acting like some latte-sucking snob from the Upper West Side doesn’t mean you’re educated or intelligent. I should know, as those morons are my neighbors.
Let me point out, agreeing with anonsters, that both you and Palin herself are plainly guilty of much worse. Note your use of “real-America,” echoing Palin. I for one am tired of hearing conservatives proclaim that the very substantial percentage of Americans who live in big cities, especially coastal cities, are somehow not “real Americans.” I don’t think anyone who does that is entitled to complain about the attitudes of “coastal elites,” all the more so when the complaint seems to focus on tastes in coffee.
I fully believe there are intelligent, successful, worthwhile people who lack Ivy League educations. What I don’t believe, which is what the Palinite know-nothings seem to think, is that somehow lack of such an education is a mark of virtue, of “real Americans,” etc.
It’s worse than nonsense.
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March 12, 2010, 12:56 pmShelbyC says:
Well, since this thread is related to parsing language, I don’t think I need to look at the context to be pretty sure that if 50 (or 57) states didn’t exist, whatever he was talking about would be significantly different.
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March 12, 2010, 1:06 pmPintler says:
Amen. On one hand, there is a country song that goes something like ‘I don’t know the difference between Iraq and Iran’ and then goes on to opine on foreign policy. If you don’t know the difference between Iraq and Iran, formulating mideast foreign policy is waaaaay over your head.
OTOH, if you look at how well the ‘best and brightest’ did in Vietnam, it would have been an improvement to draft a dozen people at random from any truckstop in Iowa.
Obviously!
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March 12, 2010, 1:08 pmanonymuss says:
So which one is it? This one, or the private school student you advertised in another thread?
Your choice, but one is a lie.
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March 12, 2010, 1:10 pmyankee says:
Also tastes in salad greens. Apparently liberals all love espresso and arugula, and Real Americans hate them.
Conservative contempt for the supposed personal consumption habits of liberals is simply bizarre. It’s presented as a reaction to supposed elitism, but the things they express contempt for are perfectly ordinary consumption goods you can buy at McDonald’s.
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March 12, 2010, 1:10 pmyankee says:
An anonymous internet commenter is lying about their background? Say it ain’t so!
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March 12, 2010, 1:16 pmFrank Drackman says:
Never got the Ball/Strike “Umpire” analogy for the Supreme Court. The Strike Zones been changed lots of times.
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March 12, 2010, 1:17 pmHerb Spencer says:
Thank you, Jimmy Carter, for appointing this agent provacateur to the most-reversed bench in the land.
IMHO, that law clerk ought to have been slapped on the face, fired, escorted from the building, and left to rot on the corner of 7th & Mission Streets in SF.
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March 12, 2010, 1:17 pmHerb Spencer says:
Agreed. Almost as chilling as those gradeschoolers reciting that ridiculous ode to Obama that surfaced last year. The salute’s saving grace, though, was that it was dedicated to a noble idea and its lasting symbol, not a preening, self-obsessed politician who’ll most likely spend no more than one-term in the White House.
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March 12, 2010, 1:27 pmDangerMouse says:
Actually, I was echoing anonsters. He said it, not me. I did say “middle-America” in another post, but that refers to most libs’ disdain for so-called “flyover country.”
What I don’t believe, which is what the Palinite know-nothings seem to think, is that somehow lack of such an education is a mark of virtue, of “real Americans,” etc. It’s worse than nonsense.
Well, then let me correct you that no one believes that a lack of education is a virtue. What people don’t like are people who pretend that education gives the more of a say than others, or is used as a tool to silence people, or who misuse their education to influence things on which they have no education (like a language professor spouting marxist history).
Libs are much more prone to believing that a select few should rule the lives of the masses, which is why they support big government programs run by bureaucrats in the first place. So they use education as a proxy for the idea that a select few, the truly educated, should rule. This is just the rule of philosopher-kings by any other name, really. Libs get upset when it’s pointed out that a degree in one thing won’t make you an expert in another, and even if it did, a degree is not an excuse for a good idea or a winning argument. There are plenty of lazy people who are fully intelligent, but believe that instead of a good argument, brute force from unaccountable bureaucrats (or judges) is a better way of making policy.
If it’s any consolation, I don’t disdain libs because they suck lattees. Like I said, I live in the upper west side. I disdain libs because a fully intelligent lib should be painfully aware of how evil their ideology is, and I don’t like evil or its passive acceptance.
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March 12, 2010, 1:30 pmyankee says:
I never got it either. Despite what is written in the rulebook, the well-accepted practice in baseball is for the strike zone to move up and down and expand and contract based on the whims of the umpire on any particular day. That’s a pretty accurate description of the Supreme Court, but I don’t think it’s what Roberts was going for.
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March 12, 2010, 1:30 pmFred37 says:
Not a huge Sarah Palin fan myself, but she makes all the right people miserable, so that’s something. Some of these comments would be at home on Gawker’s website, where Palin’s name is (over)used to Pavlovian effect.
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March 12, 2010, 1:34 pmyankee says:
Well, except that the only people who call it “flyover country” are conservative elites projecting their disdain for ordinary Americans onto their political opponents.
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March 12, 2010, 1:37 pmAndyM says:
In regards to the various “speaking Austrian” comments:
I’m well-educated, but I do frequently refer to the language we speak in the US as “American”, because in my industry (computer games) we frequently spend a lot of time and effort translating text from “American” to “British” in order to sell things in England. Thus, “English” is insufficient to specify the language.
There are enough differences in idiom, cultural references, and vocabulary that it’s frequently worth it to consider American English a different language from UK English. I’m told some companies also treat French and Canadian French separately as well. You’ll also find this to be true in books at times — the first Harry Potter book, for example, is “Philosopher’s Stone” in English, and “Sorcerer’s Stone” in American.
So, I generally don’t think someone referring to the language spoken in Austria as “Austrian” as necessarily wrong — they could be well aware that it’s not entirely the same as what’s spoken in Germany. There are plenty of other things Obama does that you can attack...
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March 12, 2010, 1:37 pmHerb Spencer says:
Gee, and all this time I thought it was Joe Montana’s pass to Dwight Clark that resulted in “The Catch” in the 1982 playoff game between SF and Dallas that was the greatest Hail Mary throw of all.
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March 12, 2010, 1:42 pmDangerMouse says:
Well, except that the only people who call it “flyover country” are conservative elites projecting their disdain for ordinary Americans onto their political opponents.
ORDINARY Americans!?!?!?!? AHA! The jig is up!
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March 12, 2010, 1:44 pmyankee says:
Actually, the Harry Potter thing had to do with the British publisher’s belief that Americans are stupid and would be scared off by the word “philosopher” in the title. There’s no history of referring to the legendary alchemical substance Rowling’s stone was based on as the “sorcerer’s stone.”
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March 12, 2010, 1:49 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 1:50 pmJMA says:
Fantasia WHT said:
“See, for example”?
What’s wrong with
“See, e.g.,”?
So... “See, e.g., ...”
What’s wrong with “See, for example...”?
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March 12, 2010, 1:50 pmSteve says:
Gee, and all this time I thought it was Joe Montana’s pass to Dwight Clark that resulted in “The Catch” in the 1982 playoff game between SF and Dallas that was the greatest Hail Mary throw of all.
This must be some kind of witty joke that went over my head, because I have never in my life heard that particular pass referred to as a “Hail Mary” before now.
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March 12, 2010, 1:52 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 2:06 pmAnonsters says:
Umm, both, chief. I went to a small Catholic high school in a Deep South state. If you think that by itself makes you either non-simple (where I define simple as not needing much to make you happy) or “refined,” you have an extraordinarily high opinion of small Catholic schools in the Deep South.
Curiously enough, I wasn’t. :)
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March 12, 2010, 2:07 pmFrank Drackman says:
I like Calvin & Hobbes version of the Pledge
“I pledge allegiance to Miss Frack, in her mighty state of Hysteria”
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March 12, 2010, 2:08 pmAnonsters says:
I laughed.
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March 12, 2010, 2:12 pmyankee says:
The Most Holy Bluebook prefers “see, e.g.,” and God forbid we should ever deviate from the Bluebook’s preferred citation formats.
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March 12, 2010, 2:16 pmMalvolio says:
Are you joking? Reagan never lost an election in his life. Bush lost one election, in 1978, served two terms as US president as you might remember, and a year after he left office, people are wearing T-shirts with his picture asking “Miss me yet?” and Newsweek re-runs his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op as their cover, non-ironically. Palin has had a stream of successes interrupted only by the 2008 election, which nothing but her personal popularity moved from being a total rout to a mere defeat (meanwhile the nominal victor is becoming the least effective president since Jimmy Carter and two years away his re-election prospects look dubious).
So yes, “successful”.
Yeah but I’m always happy. Nice to see that your fantasies are at least becoming a little creative.
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March 12, 2010, 2:16 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 2:28 pmShelbyC says:
In an evil chuckle? Bwuuuahh haa haa?
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March 12, 2010, 2:31 pmmetro11 says:
ha ... next the courts will be referencing Obama’s reference to the “57 States”...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/john-stephenson/2008/05/09/obama-says-hes-visited-57-states
of course, if a court mentioned Obama’s flub, commenters here would shout: “inappropriate partisan attack by judge!”
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March 12, 2010, 2:33 pmzuch says:
People wear “Che” T-shirts too. We allow whack-jobs in this country, and generally leave them alone. While the polls have been ticking up just a tad, he’s still extremely unpopular.
And Dubya arguably lost the 2000 election but for his friends on the Supreme Court (“This is terrible!” — S.D.O’C.)
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 2:40 pmzuch says:
Titrate the Haldol up a notch. The word “Reagan” is not anywhere in there in what I said.
FWIW, my personal opinion was that Reagan was a below-average preznit.
But thank you for your metric of “successful”. Candid of you.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 2:43 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 2:47 pmDEO says:
Did Palin think the pledge was used by the FOUNDING FATHERS??? No wonder she gets pounced. Many times she deserves it.
She really does need to go to school or something.
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March 12, 2010, 2:48 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 2:58 pmmetro11 says:
ha ... Obama thinks there are 57 states. he needs to go to school or something. he had zero executive experience ... how was he ever elected President?
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March 12, 2010, 3:06 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 3:45 pmBob from Ohio says:
Bob from Ohio: And when she said that Austrians spoke the “Austrian” language. That was pretty dumb of her too.
I don’t know Zuch, even the defenders of “Austrian” assume it was Palin, they just don’t think it was as dumb as her other comments, real or invented..
Anyways, the “cunning plan” thing was another joke. Ever watch Blackadder?
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March 12, 2010, 3:54 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 3:54 pmtde says:
Orin
Why do you think that the quote was inappropriate?
The judge was making the point that the Pledge, in its current incarnation, is only about 50–60 years old and that the language “under God” was inserted at a particular time in response to concerns of that time and that the Pledge is not some sacrosanct invocation from the founders.
There are, unfortunately, a number of people who think that the Founders did create the Pledge and it seems fair and reasonable to cite one prominent proponent of that view. Otherwise, he might be accused of creating a strawman argument.
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March 12, 2010, 3:55 pmA. Criminal says:
I think Mr. Obama was confusing “Austria” with “Australia,” as I often do, and was referring to Pitjantjatjara when he said “Austrian.”
“Just imagine politics with its dumbbell element subtracted. There would be no Republican candidates. There would be no Democratic voters. The whole system would collapse.” — P.J. O’Rourke
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March 12, 2010, 3:58 pmSarcastro says:
Is it 2008 again already?
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March 12, 2010, 4:07 pmKen Arromdee says:
You’re missing the point–the point is that that isn’t wrong. It’s just that when Obama does it, you don’t see judges making snarky comments that he thinks that Austrian is a language. Sarah Palin does it and gets attacked, Obama gets a free pass.
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March 12, 2010, 4:20 pmmetro11 says:
sarcasto: apparently it’s 2008 in Judge Reinhardt’s footnotes
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March 12, 2010, 4:20 pmRoger says:
It is unusual for a court opinion to attack some fallacious argument made by a non-party on a web site somewhere.
It this case, it is a silly and partisan straw man attack because Palin did not express the view that the Founders created the Pledge. It only looks that way because Reinhardt has falsely and maliciously misquoted Palin. You can see for yourself by checking the web site.
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March 12, 2010, 4:24 pmzuch says:
The backers of the pledge make the argument that it has achieved some raiments of traditionality and ceremonialism, and therefore doesn’t mean what it says it means. Part of that ‘argument’ is based on prevalent misconceptions (or misstatements) of the provenance of the pledge as it exists.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 4:45 pmRoger says:
So Reinhardt makes a straw man attack on the backers of the Pledge by misquoting Palin? Palin does not make the argument that the Pledge means something other than what it says.
If Reinhardt wanted to give an honest argument, he could just attack the majority opinion. Reinhardt is the one here who appears to suffer from some misconceptions.
This seems to be Reinhardt’s argument, as elaborated by commenters above. Palin made a correct and justifiable statement in support of the Pledge. But Palin is an idiot, a Christian, and a Republican. If you assume that she misunderstood the question, then it is possible to find an ambiguity in her answer. Then there is a way to interpret her answer in a way that is contrary to the history of the Pledge. Therefore the American people are supporting the Pledge for the wrong reasons, and it should be unconstitutional. And by misquoting Palin, he can make her look foolish and at the same time make her appear to be trying to force her religion on the rest of us.
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March 12, 2010, 5:05 pmJohn says:
Just a guess but perhaps it’s because Reinhardt was dishonest in attributing Sarah Palin’s words to be a comment on the POA?
But then again, not being a member of any privileged class, I’m probably out of bounds in noting that Reinhardt is a liar.
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March 12, 2010, 5:30 pmtde says:
The judge’s quote looks fair and accurate to me.
It’s baffling to me why people seem to believe that Palin (who has to write crib notes on the palm of her hand to remember to be in favor of low taxes) has some nuanced understanding of the history of the Pledge that escaped the Judge.
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March 12, 2010, 5:38 pmyankee says:
Except that, as zuch pointed out above, Reinhardt’s quote of Palin is completely accurate. The only alternative reading proposed is that “it” refers to the phrase “under God.” Not only is that reading extremely tortured, it’s just as historically inaccurate, since “under God” doesn’t come from the Founders either.
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March 12, 2010, 5:43 pmzuch says:
FWIW, “In God We Trust” is of more recent provenance than the Founders as well (go read the link). And once again adoption was also tinged with politico-religious side-currents.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 6:08 pmShelbyC says:
Not at all. The “it” in Palin’s statement that Reinhardt replaced with “[the pledge]” doesn’t even argueably refer to the pledge, it unambiguously refers to the phrase “under god”. Now maybe her statement is based on a belief that the founders said the pledge, but this quote isn’t evidence of that.
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March 12, 2010, 6:09 pmShelbyC says:
The guys upthread said it came from George Washington. So who’s right?
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March 12, 2010, 6:22 pmptt says:
I suppose it might be a “dig” at a politician if the politician were just the governor of a minor state, but she was the vice presidential nominee last time around, is widely encouraged to run for president some time soon (by some in both parties, though for different reasons), and is without a doubt one of the leading opinion makers on the right.
Isn’t this “dig” the sort of contextual note that many like to be able to point to when divining “original intent”? I’m sure scholars a few centuries from now will need some help in figuring out how mentioning “God” could be seen as inherently “patriotic”. This tidbit just provides a glimpse.
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March 12, 2010, 6:39 pmJohn says:
It is neither fair nor accurate. Palin is simply making the point that the great majority of founding fathers were religious men.
And she is right.
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March 12, 2010, 6:48 pmMOswingvoter says:
So, so tired of this. If Palin were an idiot, don’t you think it would have been mentioned in any one of her numerous campaigns for office? But it wasn’t. Not once. The meme only developed after the Gibson and Couric interviews. They were bad interviews, but it isn’t hard to make someone look stupid in a TV interview (and Couric has never released the unedited recordings). I am perplexed why so many on this blog are so certain of Palin’s idiocy, and who just assume there is a large contingent of assistants who write all of her speeches and facebook posts (despite all news reports that Palin does not have a large coterie and refuses to listen to advice). A little epistemological modesty would behoove you all.
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March 12, 2010, 6:48 pmGaryC says:
Didn’t Mika Brzezinski reveal that her favorite Founder was Abraham Lincoln?
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March 12, 2010, 6:58 pmRoger says:
Anyone who think that Reinhardt quoted Palin accurately is a moron who is incapable of rational discussion of the subject.
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March 12, 2010, 7:06 pmSarcastro says:
re: Real Americans.
All real Americans love the sting of battle.
That’s how you can tell!
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March 12, 2010, 7:22 pmFury says:
Hasn’t it already been established up-thread at least one of the Founders did use the phrase “under God” during the period of establishing independence/founding the nation?
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March 12, 2010, 7:24 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
Let’s see ... How many states does the Idiot think there are in the Union? Is Eau Claire a state? Oh well, what can you expect from someone born in Kenya?
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March 12, 2010, 7:43 pmzuch says:
See here and here.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 7:54 pmzuch says:
If I were an idiot. I don’t think I’d advertise that fact. Your views may differ, of course.
If you wish to cavil that her opponents didn’t have that opinion, I’d say you were simply wrong; Palin was savaged by many for her cluelessness, including her opponents (and by McCain’s staff even, as they admitted afterwards). They may have not stated that outright, but that’s just being polite.
Cheers,
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March 12, 2010, 7:58 pmtde says:
Looks like somebody’s Palin translator is in full “starbursts” mode.
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March 12, 2010, 8:00 pmJohn says:
Any particular reason why?
I was commenting on Sarah Palin’s assertion that the founding fathers were by and large a religious group guided by those religious principles. So you send me to a site named after a few words in a letter writeen by Thomas Jefferson to some Danbury Baptists.
The language in the Ordinance speaks for itself on the founding fathers among the hoi polloi like me. I don’t know what you can possibly read into those words that contradicts Palin’s assertion.
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March 12, 2010, 8:03 pmJohn says:
Yeah, the guys name is Reinhardt and he’s using the club of government to do it.
And you’re on board that train.
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March 12, 2010, 8:05 pmJohn says:
Right and the CIC whose Secretary of State once thought about joining the Marine Corpse in one of the USA’s 57 or 60 states is the lamb of the left and an intellect that the world sees once in Gaia’s lifetime.
Pretty fun game to play, no?
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March 12, 2010, 8:11 pmJohn says:
Good one Roger.
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March 12, 2010, 8:17 pmSuperSkeptic says:
That’s the beauty of it. It forces you to fix a strike zone, or at least admit that it is meant to be fixed and not rudderless. OTOH, you’re right to point out how divorced the ideal is from the reality.
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March 12, 2010, 8:28 pmtde says:
Could we get a quick show of hands of who thinks Obama was born in Kenya? Or that 9/11 was an “inside job”? Or that Obama is trying to prevent people from fishing for bass?
Just trying to calibrate my crazy-meter ...
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March 12, 2010, 8:28 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
Maybe Obama wasn’t born in Kenya, but he did think there were 57 states ... or was it 60? Is Eau Claire a state? Maybe he was born on Mars or some parallel universe. The Idiot-In-Chief doesn’t know there are 50 states.
For a close (scary) resemblance to the Idiot, see clips of “Idiocracy” on youtube.
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March 12, 2010, 9:00 pmyankee says:
“What newspapers do you read?” is normally a softball warmup question. But not when you’re interviewing Sarah Palin, when it’s an out-of-left-field trick question designed to make the interviewee look like an idiot.
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March 12, 2010, 9:30 pmleo marvin says:
If you really think Obama didn’t know there are 50 states, why are you giving up so easily on the “born in Kenya” thing. They’re about equally plausible.
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March 12, 2010, 9:43 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
The Kenya thing was a semi-jest. The idiot is hiding something. If he has nothing to hide, why is he spending millions of dollars of our tax money hiding it? Are you one of his fellow “hiders?”
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March 12, 2010, 9:48 pmMOswingvoter says:
Except that isn’t what she was asked; she was asked what she reads to stay in touch with the world from up in Alaska. As if Alaskans are necessarily out of touch with the world. Palin answered it by defending Alaska. Further, the question was an add-on, obviously asked later and in a different context because it is absent from the interview transcript. She could obviously have answered the question more directly, but it is inaccurate to say she couldn’t answer. It certainly is not evidence of a lack of brain power.
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March 12, 2010, 10:01 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
See youtube video (if it hasn’t been scrubbed) of Obama fumbling on the 50-state thing:
He was in 57 states, he said; only missed one (#58?); his staff wouldn’t let him go to Hawaii & Alaska (Is that now 59 & 60?).
Then, there’s the new state of Eau Claire. Does that make it 61? Or did the Idiot include Eau Clair in the basic 57?
The scary thing is that he said this in Oregon in May 2008; then repeated it in the state of Eau Claire in August. No one in his campaign caught it in May– they all think there are 57 through 61 states!
These are the idiots (mis-) governing your nation. Maybe they were all born in Kenya.
(See President Comacho in “Idiocracy”).
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March 12, 2010, 10:08 pmloki13 says:
1. I don’t think that Reinhardt could be said to be misquoting Palin since he provides the provenance of the quote. Moreover, his insertion of [the Pledge] for “it” is the most natural reading of the sentence. While it is possible that Palin meant something else, I don’t find it to be plausible– anyway, a good reason to avoid vauge language.
2. That said, there was absolutely no reason for Reinhardt to either write this monstrously long dissent, nor to use that quote. I think there are very good reasons why the Pledge *might* be unconstitutional, and I certainly don’t think the recent addition of “under God” is a great thing from a policy point of view (I think it’s a muddled legal question given precedent). However, by inserting gratuitious swipes such as this, Reinhardt has insured that what should be a dissent viewed on its legal reasoning is instead viewed as a piece of political theater.
3. My only point, which was stated above, with regard to the media framing the different politcal candidates with labels (GOP = stupid, Democrats = eggheads) is that this is a framing that is usually desired by the parties themselves. Did you see the GOP going out of their way to remind voters that GWB was a product of Andover, Harvard, and Yale? That he was the latest in a line of Eastern aristocrats? Or was he a good ol’ Texas boy, clearin’ brush? Which narrative did the GOP prefer?
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March 12, 2010, 10:25 pmw says:
I betcha that Palin knows the difference between liability insurance and collision insurance.
Who is the dummy?
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March 12, 2010, 10:43 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 11:20 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 12, 2010, 11:33 pmRandy says:
Richard: “I was once an Infantry officer. You’d be surprised how many people with degrees in, oh, say, law, or philosophy, or anything you can think of,who have never served, believe they know more than I do about such things. Or perhaps you wouldn’t.”
I feel your pain. You’d be surprised how many people believe they know more about why a person is gay than me or my gay friends. Go figure.
As for Sarah Palin, I don’t necessarily think she is an idiot. But she sure does play fast and loose with the facts, and her book has already been dissected to show that most of it is pure fiction. The publisher didn’t bother with even minimal fact-checking, which is a dereliction of duty. But perhaps they figured that with so many errors, to correct them would gut the contents so much there wouldn’t be anything left to publish.
Why she feels a need to make up stuff, even minor points, and on things that can easily be checked, I don’t know. It isn’t idiocy, but perhaps something worse. And that people read this stuff and not be concerned with the basic fallacies makes me concerned about the our political future. The very people who claim that Obama is lying about his birth certificate are the same people who are blithely unconcerned with Palin’s demonstrated lies.
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March 12, 2010, 11:48 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
So let’s see: The Idiot-In-Chief believes there are 57 to 61 states; thinks Eau Claire is a state; reads from the teleprompter; mispronounces corpsman; lies through his teeth; conceals his personal information; usurps the White House; talks like Marx and acts like Hitler; ... and millions of words are spilled over Sarah Palin’s comments? ? ?
What planet are we on — Kenya?
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March 12, 2010, 11:48 pmRichard Aubrey says:
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March 13, 2010, 12:15 amRichard Aubrey says:
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March 13, 2010, 12:26 amleo marvin says:
Am I a “fellow hider” of what? The birth certificate? It’s not hidden. We just pass it around so it’s never in the same place two nights in a row, like Yasser Arafat. Glenn Greenwald had it today. Tomorrow Oprah gets it.
Seriously, do you really believe he didn’t know there are 50 states?
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March 13, 2010, 1:36 amyankee says:
Wow, another case where self-parody is more impressive than any parody I could have come up with.
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March 13, 2010, 4:29 amShelbyC says:
I still can’t figure out why anybody cares why someone is gay.
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March 13, 2010, 8:29 amJoe says:
Kozinski was cited above for making lame ass jokes about politicians, and we are supposed to be upset that a single footnote in a long ass dissent cites Palin? In fact, that it is overly notable? Am I to believe that lower court judges don’t now and again cite things like that? And, isn’t a vice presidential candidate that has broad support in some quarters (as shown by the length of Palin threads around here, large chunks pro-Palin) one judge of what “some people believe?”
Sure, it was better if it was left out, but Reinhardt (and other judges) do things like this. I’m sorry if I missed all the times that VC cited them. My bad. Singling out this reference seems to suggest it is somehow unique. Also, btw, he has a good case on the actual matter at hand: the use of “under God” in the Pledge. I realize it won’t fly and all, but I’m glad he said it. He didn’t need to go on that long ... the first opinion managed to strike it down in a fraction of pages.
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March 13, 2010, 9:01 amBob from Ohio says:
I don’t know how the belief that liberals are snobs continues with such fine tolerant beliefs.
Not only does it dismiss all the graduates of these institutions as unworthy but it also says that unless you follow the 4 year and out plan at one college, that is bad too.
Far more people in this country attend “lowly” colleges than Ivy and other elite colleges. Many even transfer! I guess they ought to know their place.
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March 13, 2010, 9:16 amTragger says:
I don’t want to sound like some bleeding heart liberal, but Sarah Palin is such a moron. McCain’s team really dropped the ball on her. She’s of the same kind of people who probably want corporations to be bailout, but want individuals to forget about their own rights, such as being able to declare bankruptcy: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/03/09/bankruptcy-the-forgotten-right-of-the-consumer/
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March 13, 2010, 9:55 amRichard Aubrey says:
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March 13, 2010, 10:03 amzuch says:
Because they explain why the references to the Northwest Ordinance are inapropos.
Cheers,
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March 13, 2010, 10:41 amMike Hansberry says:
What possible secular purpose could there be in acknowledging that our rights come from God and not government?
Perhaps if Reinhardt read and took to mind the writings of Madison and Jefferson (Memorial and Remonstronce, Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom) the answer would not escape him.
He might even learn something(via Memorial and Remonstronce) about the meaning of the words “free state” and how they relate to the rights of individuals v. government power.
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March 13, 2010, 10:48 amDavid Schwartz says:
It depends on why you do it. If you do it specifically as a state endorsement of religious views (the reason “under God” was added to the pledge), then it is unarguably unconstitutional. If you do it because of the historic importance of those documents, then it would likely pass constitutional muster. If the purpose of a law is primarily religious, then it is unconstitutional.
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March 13, 2010, 11:19 amSG says:
Moreover, his insertion of [the Pledge] for “it” is the most natural reading of the sentence.
Apparently, there’s not just British English and American English, there’s also standard English and liberal English.
Under the rules of standard English, intervening prepositional phrases (‘in the Pledge of Allegiance’) between the antecedent (‘the phrase “Under God”’) and the pronoun (‘it’) don’t change the antecedent.
I guess since I speak standard English, I disagree with you on “the most natural reading to the sentence”
That said, I do agree that is you assume she is stupid and can’t speak standard English, her response proves she’s stupid. Are you also intending to give an example of liberal, as opposed to valid, logic?
(All snark aside, while I do disagree on the most natural reading of that sentence, I have no idea what Sarah Palin actually meant and wouldn’t be shocked at either interpretation. An actually interesting discussion could be had as to whether Lincoln should be considered a founding father. I think there’s a strong argument to be made in favor of considering him as one.)
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March 13, 2010, 11:24 amSG says:
What possible secular purpose could there be in acknowledging that our rights come from God and not government?
Because, whether you believe they come from God or not, it places them outside the legitimate reach of government. That’s a significant consequence, even if you dispute the reasoning used to reach it.
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March 13, 2010, 11:27 amChristopher LoRicci says:
Yankee say, “Who are you going to believe, me, or your own eyes when you watch Obama on videos?”
“Facts are stubborn things.” (John Adams).
Richard, watch the video; that was no mere flub. I’ve been posting in a semi-humorous vein, but now that I’ve watched the Obama videos again, a year and a half later, I realize how significant they were. He truly believed there were 57 to 61 states. If he flubbed, he flubbed twice, in May and August. Even if he were born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia, a grown man running for POTUS should have learned somewhere along the line that the nation he wants to govern has 50 states. The fact that he never did and that his staff missed it also, says something significant about the Messiah and his Disciples and points to larger issues: American exceptionalism, ideological blindness, and Obama’s ultimate goal, totalitarian democracy (see Professor Jacob Talmon).
More later; but for now, let me issue a tsunami alert: Entitlements; pensions; budget deficits; debt.
“Unsustainable is the new normal.” (Mark Steyn).
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March 13, 2010, 12:10 pmDavid Schwartz says:
That’s ridiculous. English doesn’t work that way. You cannot determine the antecedent of a pronoun by the rules of English. You can only tell by reference to the real world and the logic of the underlying claim.
“Mary saw the shiny new bicycle in the dirty store window. She had to have it.”
“Mary saw the shiny new bicycle in the dirty store window. She had to clean it.”
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March 13, 2010, 12:16 pmSG says:
That’s ridiculous. English doesn’t work that way. You cannot determine the antecedent of a pronoun by the rules of English. You can only tell by reference to the real world and the logic of the underlying claim.
The second sentence is not correct, irregardless if it can correctly understood.
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March 13, 2010, 12:30 pmjukeboxgrad says:
christopher:
“Ideological blindness” is a good way to describe the people who are making a fuss about Obama’s spending even though they sat on their hands while Reagan tripled the national debt and while Dubya doubled it. 77% of our national debt was accumulated under three presidents: Reagan, Bush and Bush.
Bruce Bartlett did a nice job of pointing out the hypocrisy.
The GOP has no problem with big government, as long as it’s a big GOP government.
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March 13, 2010, 1:37 pmDavid Schwartz says:
That is utterly ridiculous. That’s prescriptivism taken to an absurd extreme.
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March 13, 2010, 3:21 pmFury says:
It’s all a matter of context. What you write is factually correct, with one significant point. Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Bush are in the past — and their debt has already been “accounted for” in the court of public opinion. The debt and deficit that have occurred during the term of President Obama is “his” (and also Congress) — and how much if any this will influence voters in the fall of 2010 is an unknown.
We have several states that have serious budget problems, high unemployment and the like. Regardless of the lack of fiscal discipline of past presidents, voters are more apt to make voting decisions based (in part) on their perceptions, the fiscal record of the current President (and Congress), and their local economies.
Frankly, Republicans have a –long– way to go in demonstrating some semblance of fiscal discipline that is sustained and sincere. People like Minority Leader Boehner don’t inspire a lot of confidence in this regard. I sense a more anti-incumbent sentiment will be in effect this Fall, and this could impact Democrats more than Republicans.
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March 13, 2010, 3:36 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
jukeboxgrad:
That’s why I’m not a Republican. I’m also not an ideologue — I’m a libertarian who embraces freedom.
You should grasp the non-ideological nature of freedom: Freedom, like Being, just is. Of course if you’re enslaved by MIND, like the Messiah and his Disciples, you don’t have a clue about being, freedom, and reality; all you’re in touch with is your MIND and its machinations.
One of the dirty little secrets of the 20th century is that the state in the service of MIND (ideology) killed over 100 million human beings, more than were killed in all the wars combined. MIND is on the march again in America, and it will drive us over the cliff. Adam Smith said there’s a lot of ruin in an economy. Well, we’ve now reached a critical juncture: There’s no more ruin left — we are ruined. This is not to let Reagan or Bush off the hook, but deficits and debt under Obama are of a different order of magnitude altogether.
People on this website keep taking another slice off the gnat’s ass — parsing Sarah Palin’s comments — when the tsunami is approaching and about to overwhelm us.
Here are the recent words of the current Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Doug Elmendorff:
CBO projects that the budget deficit and debt are on a trajectory that poses SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC RISKS and ultimately becomes UNSUSTAINABLE. U.S. government debt is quickly entering TERRITORY THAT IS UNFAMILIAR to us and to most developed nations in recent years. The key choices for medium-term and long-term policy are how quickly and in what way to restrain federal borrowing. The alternative of continuing large increases in federal borrowing would pose a SERIOUS THREAT to the future of the U.S. economy. If we don’t reverse course, VERY, VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.
Mr. Elmendorf is too sanguine about the possibility that federal spending will be “restrained.” Since when has any Congress or President, Republican or Democrat, shown any “restraint” in spending. Only their beneficiaries change. Look for deficits and debt to continue as far as the eye can see.
That’s why Mark Steyn said, “Unsustainable is the new normal.”
WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO GET PEOPLE’S ATTENTIONS OFF THE GNAT’S ASS AND FOCUS ON THE COMING TSUNAMI.
Sarah Palin is not the issue; if anything, she, at least, might restrain spending.
Maybe you should all go back and view the photos of Thailand when their tsunami engulfed them.
Our tsunami will show up as hyperinflation, economic collapse and social disintegration. Anyone want to parse more of Palin’s remarks?
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March 13, 2010, 3:43 pmleo marvin says:
Well, I guess I have my answer. Thanks.
One more question. Do you know how implausible that is, and how unhinged it makes you sound?
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March 13, 2010, 3:47 pmjukeboxgrad says:
christopher:
Would you care to tell us how you voted in the last few presidential elections? Because a pattern I’ve noticed around these parts is that there are lots of people who are suddenly distancing themselves from the GOP even though they’ve been consistently voting GOP. If it quacks like a duck etc.
Steyn is one of many people who have no credibility because they suddenly became born-again deficit hawks on 1/20/09.
You mean like her decision to build a $15 million hockey rink in a town with a $20 million annual budget? Or maybe you’re thinking of some other aspect of her “Uninspiring Tax Policy Record.” Which included passing what various conservatives have described as a “windfall-profits tax.”
Are you actually familiar with the actual meaning of the actual phrase “order of magnitude?” Bush passed an “unfunded drug benefit which added $15.5 trillion (in present value terms) to our nation’s indebtedness” (link). Which of Obama’s initiatives are you claiming has a cost of $150 trillion?
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March 13, 2010, 4:10 pmChris Travers says:
I disagree, actually. Christians who defend the Third Capitoline Triad (Jupiter, Libertas, Justitia– i.e. the three main figures in the American iconography of state religion) just look stupid. I am happy to let them continue to defend Roman pagan iconography with a paper-thin veneer of Christianity....
I say let them continue to struggle that the pagan ways may continue.
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March 13, 2010, 7:36 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
Obama said “57′ in Oregon in May. Then “57” in the state of Eau Claire in August.
Why does the number “57” seem to stick in his mind? Anyone care to answer?
First one who answers correctly wins my American Flag lapel pin with 57 stars.
“Nobody tell Obama what comes after a trillion.” (Mark Steyn)
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March 13, 2010, 8:29 pmJohn says:
Look I’d be happy to debate the merits, or lack thereof, of your links but there really is no reason to get into a lengthy discussion about what these fellows think about an Ordinance PASSED by the FIRST US CONGRESS. They are as deluded as any person can be in judging what that Congress did as “unconstitutional”. Their historical presentism is kind of funny actually.
The point, which I though I made clear above is that the vast majority of founding fathers were religious men who practiced their religion vigorously. This is Palin’s claim and it is absolutely true whether the congnitive dissonants like it or not.
Cheers!
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March 13, 2010, 11:19 pmJohn Skookum says:
The funniest thing was when she tried to show off her intimate knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs by reminiscing about the time the US and the French drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon. What a hoot. Good thing such an ignorant moron didn’t become Vice President.
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March 14, 2010, 12:34 amJohn Skookum says:
Sarah Palin is fairly young and robustly healthy. I expect Republican office seekers will still be kissing her ring and seeking her endorsement in 50 years.
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March 14, 2010, 12:38 amJohn Skookum says:
Sarah Palin correctly used the subjunctive mood in that statement, and correctly echoed the sense of Lincoln’s version. I’d like to think that ‘genius’ Charles Gibson was too dishonest to acknowledge it, but the reality is he’s probably just too stupid to recognize it.
I wish all of these half-educated enemedia filth would go on Celebrity Jeopardy like Wolf Blitzer so we could dispose once and for all of the notion that they are any smarter than your average unemployed Alaskan housewife.
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March 14, 2010, 12:52 amJohn Skookum says:
The hockey rink was passed by referendum of the people of the town, not by Sarah Palin’s fiat. And in any case, taking on debt to finance a permanent asset is a far cry from borrowing to pay for general spending as we do at the Federal level.
Also, a severance fee is most certainly not a windfall profits tax. When you say that, you are only demonstrating that you don’t know the difference between net and gross.
Reminds me of a certain ‘genius’ Harvard Lawyer who fancies himself competent to take over one-sixth of the American economy but doesn’t know what a P/E ratio is.
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March 14, 2010, 1:05 amJohn Skookum says:
Do you really believe Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country?
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March 14, 2010, 1:11 amJohn Skookum says:
Oh, the writing on the palm thing again. Those three lines on her hand weren’t to remind herself that she is in favor of low taxes. They were to remind herself to make sure to mention lower taxes in the hour-long extemporaneous speech she gave without the aid of any other notes or teleprompters.
Barack Obama has never done anything that comes close to that in his whole life. If the teleprompter fails, he shuts his mouth and stands there looking like an unusually frightened and stupid cigar-store Indian in a $3000 suit.
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March 14, 2010, 1:17 amleo marvin says:
No. Did I say I do? No.
Did Christopher LoRicci say he believes Barack Obama thinks there are 57 states? Yes.
See the difference?
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March 14, 2010, 1:52 amleo marvin says:
The answer is in the seventh paragraph. You can leave my flag pin with the FEMA driver who takes you to the re-education camp. He’ll know who I am. Just ask him to give it to me.
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March 14, 2010, 3:15 amleo marvin says:
Barack Obama is so stupid, I’m amazed he can even say “57 states” without a teleprompter. Aren’t you?
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March 14, 2010, 3:22 amjukeboxgrad says:
skookum:
Naturally. That’s why a Republican said “it was a mistake that we allowed the cameras to roll like that” when Obama addressed the GOP without a teleprompter.
What about taking on debt so your friends can make lots of money and help you build a nice new house?
Naturally. And that’s why WSJ and various other conservatives described it as “a windfall profits tax.”
Hmm, let’s see. During Clinton’s term, the Dow more than tripled. During GWB’s term, it dropped 25%. So far under Obama it’s up 34%. If the Dow is above 6,000 when Obama leaves office, he will have outperformed Bush, in this regard.
So feel free to make a fuss about the words. I’ll be paying attention to the numbers.
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March 14, 2010, 10:48 amDavid Sucher says:
“...a well-established political view picks up a meme...”
Orin, the only difference might perhaps be that Judge Reinhardt said it clearly as opposed to the more typical indirection.
Justices are always using their own political views — I mean that’s their whole point. No?
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March 14, 2010, 11:43 ammattski says:
I understand there are still some undeveloped stretches of rain forest where you can go to experience this ultimate Zen-like reality. Have you considered moving to paradise in order to live your creed?
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March 14, 2010, 12:24 pmGrannyBG says:
The words “under god” did not appear until I was mid way thru grade school. Coming from a non religious family I found this to be a very morally uncomfortable change. On the one hand I was a “good” little girl and didn’t want to lie: on the other hand I didn’t want people to think badly of me by going against the authority of the school. So I went along with it and felt like a bad person for lying. I still don’t know why this change occured...guess it was a result of the commie boogiemen era.
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March 14, 2010, 3:43 pmwunsacon says:
Arthur Kirkland,
“Elitist”, “elitist”, “elitist”, what an empty “accusation”. Do you mean “elitist” as in “wealthy”? Then say it. Or, as seems to be the case here, do you mean “elitist” as in “educated”? Then say it. Because as soon as you say you hate the educated, then you should see your “accusation” as horseshit.
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March 14, 2010, 3:55 pmsherifffruitfly says:
You lost me with that opening.
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March 14, 2010, 4:42 pmnicteis says:
I certainly can’t claim to know, but I can submit a reasonable guess. Being the ultra-knowledgeable, wonkish type that he is, and being in the midst of a primary campaign rather than a general election at the time, his head was packed full of minutiae about the upcoming convention. At which, there would be delegates representing the 52 states and the 5 official territories. (Check the number of quarters issued by the U.S. mint in the currently running “states” = “states and territories” series.) 52 + 5 = 57.
Since one of my best friends, also an Obama fan, grew up as a military brat in the territory of Guam, she’d be an appropriate recipient for that lapel pin.
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March 14, 2010, 4:50 pmNick says:
@MOswingvoter
Yes, if Palin was an idiot, why didn’t Palin’s campaign mention she was an idiot? Therefore she is not an idiot.
BTW: she has a huge entourage of advisers as admitted by herself & Bill O’Reilly
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March 14, 2010, 5:08 pmRTE says:
Too many Sarah Palin apologists. Implying that the pledge dates to the time of the founders is just plain ignorance; but implying that a modification made to the pledge 62 years after it was written dates to a time almost 200 years prior is ludicrous.
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March 14, 2010, 5:31 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
jbg, if a person wants his or her vote to count, then he or she has to vote for a person who has a chance at winning the election, right? I know of people who voted for Ralph Nader, but that’s kind of quixotic, don’t you think, especially if you can mostly tolerate the Republican viewpoint and think the Democrats winning would be a bad thing for the country? Suppose that the person finds the Republican view, on balance, more in line with his own than the Democrat view. Or if not that, then finds the Democrat view intolerable and doesn’t want that party to win. Does the fact that that person votes GOP make him a Republican?
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March 14, 2010, 6:17 pmzuch says:
Why would you quote it then. But the links I gave you explain the relevance of an “ordinance passed by the first US congress”:
It would seem that the fact that your “authorities” are a pile of sh*te might be worth pointing out.
There’s more fun stuff there in the links for you. Educate yourself.
Cheers,
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March 14, 2010, 8:17 pmRobert Waldmann says:
“J. Aldridge says:
Maybe she is thinking of the word “God” in oaths the founders approved of? (shrug)”
Maybe you should check the constitution to find which mandatory oaths are in it ? You will find none, 0 (zero).
You will find “swear (or affirm).” The founders definitely would never have required anyone to participate in an oath. If they had, the constitution might not have been ratified.
At the time, quakers refused to swear oaths. “Accepting” any oath would be establishing non Quakerdom as an official religion. In fact, I think there is a pretty much open and shut case that the pledge is unconstitutional *without* the words “under God” and must read “I pledge (or affirm) allegiance to the ...” to pass constitutional muster.
I mean if it was good enough for the founding fathers, why isn’t it good enough for us ?
Now they certainly did allow states to force people to swear oaths. The bill of rights, as written, imposes restrictions on the Federal government. It was only with the ratification of the 14th amendment that it restricted state governments. Clearly the founders did not limit what oaths school districts could force childred to swear. No one claims they did. The reconstruction era Republicans added that restriction.
I am not a lawyer and find it odd to feel the need to type this comment here. I guess I have noticed by now that familiarity with the US constitution is not a of commenters here (I seem to be commenting and I haven’t been quizzed).
I wonder if in place of the type these letters to prove you are a human being Volokh conspirators might put a quiz question on the constitution (if they have done that already you probably won’t get a chance to read this comment as I won’t get it right).
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March 14, 2010, 8:18 pmJack Marshall says:
Cherry-picking one statement by a public figure to take a gratuitous shot at them is unfair; using a quote that the most logical way to interpret would be reasonable (it seems obvious to me that Palin was attributing “under God” to the Founders, not the Pledge) is more unfair; and using the specious logic that “Palin is dumb, so the dumbest interpretation possible ought to be attributed to her” is the most unfair of all. How comforting it is to automatically conclude that those with whom we disagree are evil and /or dim! Palin is a target of this sort of thing far, far in excess of what her significance, influence or commentary warrants, and pundits, reporters, bloggers, law clerks and judges who engage in it just show their own lack of principle. I wonder if they realize how arrogant and petty this appears to fair-minded observers, regardless of political orientation.
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March 14, 2010, 9:20 pmArakiba says:
Sarah Palin: She’s got what plants crave.
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March 15, 2010, 12:34 amleo marvin says:
Nitrogen? Southern exposure? A job at Fox News?
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March 15, 2010, 4:44 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
Mattski:
Paradise arrived November 1979. Lost my MIND; gained my mind.
“A MIND is a terrible thing; waste it.” (Bruce Blanchard)
jbg:
Obama said (twice): “... 57 states ...” (in the U.S.; including Eau Claire ... I think. Somebody help me here — did the Idiot-In-Chief include Eau Claire in the 57?).
The Organization of the Islamic Conference has 57 States (wikipedia).
Well, what can you expect from someone born in Kenya (or maybe Manchuria), raised in Indonesia,
and who listened to the rantings of the Reverend Wright for 22 years, or whatever, until Wright, like SO MANY OTHERS had to be thrown under the bus. If it quacks like a duck ...
No one answered correctly, so no one wins my 57-star pin.
leo marvin:
McCarthy? How did he get in here? But while he’s here, how come we always hear about McCarthyism and never anything about Hall-ism, Service-ism, Hiss-ism, etc.
What ... “Venona,” “Bombshell,” “The Black Book of Communism,” and a whole shelf of other books were never published?
Oh, that’s right, evidence doesn’t matter to Utopianists.
Jack Marshall is the only one who’s made any sense.
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March 15, 2010, 7:53 pmDavid Schwartz says:
leo marvin: Electrolytes.
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March 15, 2010, 7:54 pmjukeboxgrad says:
laura:
No. I think you are overlooking the concept of the “safe state.”
If he does it consistently, yes.
And maybe you notice that Christopher has ducked the question.
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March 16, 2010, 3:48 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
JBG, we differ. No surprise there.
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March 16, 2010, 12:15 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
Laura (Southernxyl) answered for me. I’ve usually sent in a write-in ballot or voted third party (e.g., Perot, twice; Libertarian) in presidential elections and even put a third party on the ballot in my former home state and elected a United States Senator on our ticket– the first United States Senator from a third party since Reconstruction.
Right now I’m a Tea Party activist resisting daily the Republican attempts to hijack our movement, although I support all candidates who will identify themselves with our movement: Scott Brown, (R); Doug Hoffman, (Con); Chuck DeVore, (R); etc.
And ... I consider myself a Truman/Kennedy/Moynahan Democrat. One of my idols, Peter Drucker, said he voted for Truman every time Harry’s name appeared on a ballot, because Truman, unlike the present breed infesting the party, had impeccable integrity. I actually campaigned for Truman as a 10 year-old; voted for JFK and admired Moynahan greatly.
But once in while, if the Democrat is a lunatic, a liar, a usurper, a totalitarian, an idiot, an ideologue — let’s see, did I leave anything out — then I’ll vote Republican, even though the Republican would have been clueless and a usurper also (McCain). But I don’t tell myself fairy tales about my candidate like the Disciples do about their Messiah.
After I lost my MIND, and gained my mind, one of the benefits I obtained was I could do 2 times 2 without the story.
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March 16, 2010, 12:43 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
Laura (Southernxyl) answered for me. I’ve usually sent in a write-in ballot or voted third party (e.g., Perot, twice; Libertarian) in presidential elections and even put a third party on the ballot in my former home state and elected a United States Senator on our ticket– the first United States Senator from a third party since Reconstruction.
Right now I’m a Tea Party activist resisting daily the Republican attempts to hijack our movement, although I support all candidates who will identify themselves with our movement: Scott Brown, (R); Doug Hoffman, (Con); Chuck DeVore, (R); etc.
And ... I consider myself a Truman/Kennedy/Moynahan Democrat. One of my idols, Peter Drucker, said he voted for Truman every time Harry’s name appeared on a ballot, because Truman, unlike the present breed infesting the party, had impeccable integrity. I actually campaigned for Truman as a 10 year-old; voted for JFK and admired Moynahan greatly.
But once in while, if the Democrat is a lunatic, a liar, a usurper, a totalitarian, an idiot, an ideologue — let’s see, did I leave anything out — then I’ll vote Republican, even though the Republican would have been clueless and a usurper also (McCain). But I don’t tell myself fairy tales about my candidate like the Disciples do about their Messiah.
After I lost my MIND, and gained my mind, one of the benefits I obtained was I could do 2 times 2 without the story.
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March 16, 2010, 12:43 pmChristopher LoRicci says:
Laura (Southernxyl) answered for me. I’ve usually sent in a write-in ballot or voted third party (e.g., Perot, twice; Libertarian) in presidential elections and even put a third party on the ballot in my former home state and elected a United States Senator on our ticket– the first United States Senator from a third party since Reconstruction.
Right now I’m a Tea Party activist resisting daily the Republican attempts to hijack our movement, although I support all candidates who will identify themselves with our movement: Scott Brown, (R); Doug Hoffman, (Con); Chuck DeVore, (R); etc.
And ... I consider myself a Truman/Kennedy/Moynahan Democrat. One of my idols, Peter Drucker, said he voted for Truman every time Harry’s name appeared on a ballot, because Truman, unlike the present breed infesting the party, had impeccable integrity. I actually campaigned for Truman as a 10 year-old; voted for JFK and admired Moynahan greatly.
But once in while, if the Democrat is a lunatic, a liar, a usurper, a totalitarian, an idiot, an ideologue — let’s see, did I leave anything out — then I’ll vote Republican, even though the Republican would have been clueless and a usurper also (McCain). But I don’t tell myself fairy tales about my candidate like the Disciples do about their Messiah.
After I lost my MIND, and gained my mind, one of the benefits I obtained was I could do 2 times 2 without the story.
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March 16, 2010, 12:43 pmMike says:
Obama recently claimed that his health-care plan would lower premiums by as much as 3000 percent. Imagine the reaction if Palin had said something like that.
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March 17, 2010, 4:26 amamericam foxhound says:
Good morning, This is a truly cinematic blog, and I will agree with what was written here. I will be back to visit the comments soon. Thanks
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March 28, 2010, 7:37 am