The US Supreme Court has held (District of Columbia v. Heller) that the Second Amendment indeed bestows an individual the right to keep and bear arms. It must have taken thousands of hours of research by law clerks and brilliant ruminations on the part of the nine justices to jump the formidable intellectual chasm between the Constitution’s language, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” and the Court’s pronouncement “that the Second Amendment indeed bestows an individual the right to keep and bear arms.”
This is why these guys make the big bucks. Sure, readers of this blog are of above-average intelligence but could you geniuses have decomposed this legal conundrum without the assistance of law clerks from Harvard and Columbia and constant refills from the top shelf at Citronelle?
The Supremes
Do you think it’s easy being a Supreme Court justice? Not in this era of equality and political correctness. Back in the old days when the Court was a boys’ club, life was simpler. After their morning prune juice and oatmeal, the dyspeptic nine would gather in the men’s room and discuss contemporary legal issues. Each would sit in his own stall… (Well, there was that one time when a couple of justices… but that’s another story). Anyway, while each guy sat on his porcelain seat of judgment awaiting the highlight of his personal day, the boys would discuss the issues on the Court’s docket and dispense of them with an efficiency that can be witnessed only in individuals who have a ten o’clock tee time. The judges would then meet ‘in chambers’ (that is, with their pants pulled up) and tell their clerks to whip out something with a sufficiently high SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) Index so that their decisions would keep brother lawyers employed for another year or so. Clerks also were admonished to cite as many “precedents” as possible on the theory that any legal decision, no matter how stupid, is OK if you can find enough cases where other judges reached the same wrong conclusion.
Nowadays, with women on the court, things are more complicated. Quick decisions in the men’s room are out and justices are forced to meet in a more formal setting, a library, where the female justices insist on consulting endless legal references and the writings of Oprah and Dr. Phil before reaching a decision. The agreed-upon tee time at the Congressional Country Club slips from ‘future’ to ‘present’ to ‘history.’ One inept justice made the mistake of asking another justice, who has a reputation for being a ‘wise Latina,’ for her recipe for huevos rancheros. Our unfortunate would-be chef was curtly informed that one more question like that and he would be wearing a Columbian necktie, one of the great innovations of some ‘wise guy Latinos.’
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 2:07 AM and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The Supremes are Back
The Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court has held (District of Columbia v. Heller) that the Second Amendment indeed bestows an individual the right to keep and bear arms. It must have taken thousands of hours of research by law clerks and brilliant ruminations on the part of the nine justices to jump the formidable intellectual chasm between the Constitution’s language, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” and the Court’s pronouncement “that the Second Amendment indeed bestows an individual the right to keep and bear arms.”
This is why these guys make the big bucks. Sure, readers of this blog are of above-average intelligence but could you geniuses have decomposed this legal conundrum without the assistance of law clerks from Harvard and Columbia and constant refills from the top shelf at Citronelle?
The Supremes
Do you think it’s easy being a Supreme Court justice? Not in this era of equality and political correctness. Back in the old days when the Court was a boys’ club, life was simpler. After their morning prune juice and oatmeal, the dyspeptic nine would gather in the men’s room and discuss contemporary legal issues. Each would sit in his own stall… (Well, there was that one time when a couple of justices… but that’s another story). Anyway, while each guy sat on his porcelain seat of judgment awaiting the highlight of his personal day, the boys would discuss the issues on the Court’s docket and dispense of them with an efficiency that can be witnessed only in individuals who have a ten o’clock tee time.
The judges would then meet ‘in chambers’ (that is, with their pants pulled up) and tell their clerks to whip out something with a sufficiently high SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) Index so that their decisions would keep brother lawyers employed for another year or so. Clerks also were admonished to cite as many “precedents” as possible on the theory that any legal decision, no matter how stupid, is OK if you can find enough cases where other judges reached the same wrong conclusion.
Nowadays, with women on the court, things are more complicated. Quick decisions in the men’s room are out and justices are forced to meet in a more formal setting, a library, where the female justices insist on consulting endless legal references and the writings of Oprah and Dr. Phil before reaching a decision. The agreed-upon tee time at the Congressional Country Club slips from ‘future’ to ‘present’ to ‘history.’ One inept justice made the mistake of asking another justice, who has a reputation for being a ‘wise Latina,’ for her recipe for huevos rancheros. Our unfortunate would-be chef was curtly informed that one more question like that and he would be wearing a Columbian necktie, one of the great innovations of some ‘wise guy Latinos.’
Like this:
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 2:07 AM and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.