My wife witnessing me view the Roberts confirmation hearing accused me of having a "man crush" on the soon to be Chief Justice. As this phrase and accusation was new to me I asked its source and then responded: I have seen Ted Olsen and Kenn Starr argue. I have seen Larry Tribe in action in person and on the screen. I have followed Professor Dershowitz and attended the Bork hearings in person. I knew Justice Alito when he was the AG in Newark and saw him in action and was at his swearing in to the Third Circuit. I've seen Scalia in debate and met and watched Thomas speak before he was Chief Justice. I have never seen, nor thought to see, in my life, an attorney so effortless with all aspects of the law, capable of speaking in perfect paragraphs on any subject to any question at any time. To do so without a trace of ruffle, fear or even hesitation. I simply believe it can be said of the current Chief Justice like a golf great once said about Jack Nickalus, "He plays a game with which I'm not familiar."
Yet, at a moment of high drama in the Nation's history he flubbed it. His fellow Harvard Law graduate flubbed it (as I noted below). To placate what can only be described as the "Barack was born in Kenya" school of Constitutional adjudication they readministered the oath.
It is a good sign. Now if they would only recognize the other proscriptions and requirements of that document on their own powers I would truly look forward to this administration.
4 comments:
You have to take a mulligan every now and again.
While I respect the confidence of the Chief Justice...no index card tucked into the robe was a bit brave.
Immediately after I heard he had been sworn in again today that headline came to mind, so I did a Google search to see how many times it had been used so far. Well, the answer is once.
There's a reason Teleprompters were invented.
And I am with your wife on this one, JJV. Definitely a man crush. Though I am sure that at least one of these 99 lovelies (?) has also attracted your interest.
Post a Comment