It will come soon if it has not happened already. Justice Kavanaugh will be the esteemed guest at many law schools. All will be forgiven just as it has been with Justice Thomas. Most liberal law professors will crowd around at the inevitable faculty lounge brunch or afternoon coffee. I've seen how it work at my own law school which has had Justice Thomas in for three extended visits. I am surprised we have not invited his wife to guest lecture. I am sure if we could get Donald Trump in to teach negotiations or even ethics we would do it in a heartbeat. I would not let any of the three of them tie my shoe.
It is not just us and it's just not law schools. You might say that people put their convictions aside when a celebrity enters the room. What is it with that? I can think of two explanations. The first is the "respect for the office." Total BS! It's more like being in awe of the office and being careful not to offend someone who is higher up on the status totem pole than you are. Anyone who kowtows to Kavanaugh or Thomas out of respect for the office misses the point that neither should be in the office. Respect for the office would mean snubbing those two. If you really respect the office, do not toast the pretenders.
The other one -- which I have heard -- is "he is really a nice guy." Really, really! By that standard everyone is nice. How hard it is to seem to be friendly and impress people with superficial affectations of warmth. Oh, let's just have a beer together. (Or in Kavanaugh's case, make that a keg.) Being a nice guy, which anyone can do, is one way to hide your actual values. Being a nice guy should not be assessed on the basis of a 20 minute talk or a dinner but rather on what you actually do that affects people you do not now. Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Trump are not nice guys no matter how "nice" they can be in a social setting.
But somehow, after the smoke clears, Kavanaugh will be the toast of many faculty gatherings attended by liberals and conservative alike. Because, we know when you get right down to it, he is a nice guy and we must have respect for the office.
1 comment:
Ms. Blasey Ford testified before Congress that she could not remember whether Justice Kavanaugh arrived at the party before or after she did. She also testified that Kavanaugh was definitely drunk when he got to the party. Not sure how many cases you've tried but those two statements are contradictory. She was not being truthful. To further show how people will lie to hurt people with whom they disagree politically her friend said that she remembered the incident well because everyone was talking about it at school the whole following week, except that Blasey Ford said it happened during summer vacation and she had never told another living soul about it until decades later. Kind of like Anita Hill's star corroborating witness who said Anita told her all about Justice Thomas' supposed misdeeds at the time during they were happening during long, late-night phone calls they used to have. She then stupidly volunteered that the calls had stopped when she moved far away from Washington. When it was pointed out that the time frame in which Anita said the harassment occurred began after the witness had moved the witness said nothing and so did most of the media.
You believe people who agree with you, and if a Democrat's nominee was accused of similar conduct you would not believe it.
Since the late 1960's almost all young people went to parties, drank at those parties and sometimes fooled around with members of the opposite sex. If the process of selecting the SCOTUS now involves accepting at face value decades old accusations from teenage parties made by known partisans then we encourage more lying. Ain't no way to run a gubmint. If something happened to you report it within the statute of limitations or forever hold your peace.
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