Empathy Cited As Important By Many Court Nominees (And Today's Scritti Politti)

Well, we can officially put this ridiculous argument over empathy to bed, because, as it turns out, our Supreme Court justices are so gosh-darned empathetic that they make most emo bands look like callous, unfeeling robots by comparison. Check out these emotional squishes of jurisprudence!

Clarence Thomas:

And I believe, Senator, that I can make a contribution, that I can bring something different to the Court, that I can walk in the shoes of the people who are affected by what the Court does. You know, on my current court I have occasion to look out the window that faces C Street, and there are converted buses that bring in the criminal defendants to our criminal justice system, bus load after bus load. And you look out and you say to yourself, and I say to myself almost every day, "But for the grace of God there go I."

OMG, Clarence! Don't cry all over your robe, for Pete's sake!

Sam Alito

Listen to Alito, straight up sympathizin' with La Raza and stuff!

Sandra Day O'Connor

The first woman on the high court tends to play down that role somewhat. "I think that I bring to the court differences in background that are more germane than my gender," she said.

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"My experience as a legislator gives me a different perspective. Also, I bring to the court the perspective of a woman primarily in a sense that I am female, just as I am white, a college graduate, etc.

"Yes, I will bring the understanding of a woman to the court, but I doubt that that alone will affect my decisions," she said. "I think the important fact about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases."

TRUE STORY! O'Connor actually stepped down from the court because she dearly loves her husband, John, a sufferer of Alzheimer's disease, and wanted to spend more time with him. What a monstrous display of marital devotion, abiding love, and empathy!

Cheney Gets Baked: As it turns out, some of the best intelligence was obtained not through the torture that Dick Cheney loves so much and wants to marry, because he's a big ol' torture lover, but from COOKIES. In Cheney's defense, they did use Nestle's "Chocolate Ticking Time Bomb Chunks" Recipe.

This Day In Balkinization, Part One: Here's the incredibly true story of how the American Spectator proved that if you just changed Sonia Sotomayor's race, gender, and socioeconomic status, she wouldn't at all resemble the person Obama appointed. Instead, she'd look like -- uhm...a slightly less intelligent version of Sam Alito. AWESOME WORK, American Spectator!

This Day In Balkinization, Part Two: Indeed. He who is NOT AFRAID TO BE SERVICEY shall prove be NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING. That's from Sun Tzu's The Art of HA HA YOUR PRINT MEDIUM IS DYING!

Incredibad: Here are some conservative rappers, who never thought they'd be on a boat, or something.

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Comments

[HesDanTheMan]

Jason, you are so F'ing AWESOME! I always enjoy your writings. Hopefully this will put the whole Sotomayor thing to rest for awhile, until the "Cons" come up with something new.
I'm sorry those two Rappers....reminded me too much of the two that were responsible for Columbine! They are way too scary dude, way too scary.