Answers to the Alberto Gonzales Final Exam

Alberto is quaint.

Why doesn’t he just go play golf somewhere and leave us all alone?

Like I said, at this point DeVry and ITT have more academic credibility than Texas Tech to me.

Getting Gonzo to teach government is like Dick Cheney becoming a grief councilor.

I think he needs to go teach at Regent, just like John Ashcroft.

@RomeGirl: He’s got to go make money to maintain the lifestyle and for future legal fees.
@ManchuCandidate: Given Gov. Good Hair just put a creationist in charge of the Texas Board of Education who is demanding that history books give equal time to religious leaders and science books talk about plate tectonics and evolution as a theory, the Texas high school graduates will be well-prepared for Gonzo’s politics class – yet another educational experience that presents an alternate reality.

Ken Starr is dean of the Pepperdine Law School, a 4th rate school on a beautiful campus overlooking Malibu. As you drive up the hill towards the school, you are greeted by a cross big enough to crucify Clinton and all the women he boffed.

@SanFranLefty:
I read about that. It’s ironic in a stupid funny way that Tejan Creationists hate the very thing that made Tejas. No plate tectonics, no oil. Yup, the Stupid is Stupider is Tejas.

Coburn: Do we have a constitutional right to self-defense?

Interesting question, doctor. Find “self-defense” in the Constitution and get back to me. Or shall we be activists and create rights where none exist?

@Dodgerblue: And how many times has that fourth tier school and its cross been burnt down in the annual SoCal fires? I have always found Pepperdine to be so odd – I thought that all its students were the party-crazy off-spring of movie executives who didn’t get in to Loyola or U$C – but then what’s up with all the crosses and shit? A friend who is a member of your tribe interviewed for a teaching job there and was asked about his personal relationship with Jesus. That question pretty much ended any hope of teaching Civ Pro or Torts by the ocean.

@SanFranLefty: asked about his personal relationship with Jesus.

Whiny bitch. Always talks on his cell during movies.

@nojo: Whenever I hear that phrase (it’s a common question in the South) I have the Pavlovian response of an earworm of the Depeche Mode song “Personal Jesus”

nojo: He leaves the toilet seat up. Just like Him: always thinking that the seat’s going to miracle itself down.

[TJ] Sheldon Whitehouse. Best. Name. Ever.

@SanFranLefty: Never. They have a personal relationship with Hephaestus.

I did a favor for a friend recently and drove my big Jewish ass up there to give a talk on legal careers in public service. One kid asked me how he could get a job at my Big Green enviro group. I thought, but did not say, “transfer.”

One of my son’s friends went to Pepperdine–his dad is a fundie and I thought it was a weird choice (admitted OH naivite thinking that there wouldn’t be a fundie college in Malibu) until I went to the Pepperdine website a second ago….unapologetically fundie with Starr on the front page. and Jesus wept.

@chicago bureau: And he double-dips chips.

@Dodgerblue: I thought the fundies wanted environmental destruction because it moves the ball forward towards eventual armageddon and teh rapture™.

Oh my dear God — the Federalist Society page on the Sotomayor hearing is precious. Some windbag named Louis Michael Seidman said this:

Speaking only for myself (I guess that’s obvious), I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor’s testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe that judging in hard cases involves no more than applying the law to the facts? First year law students understand within a month that many areas of the law are open textured and indeterminate—that the legal material frequently (actually, I would say always) must be supplemented by contestable presuppositions, empirical assumptions, and moral judgments. To claim otherwise—to claim that fidelity to uncontested legal principles dictates results—is to claim that whenever Justices disagree among themselves, someone is either a fool or acting in bad faith. What does it say about our legal system that in order to get confirmed Judge Sotomayor must tell the lies that she told today? That judges and justices must live these lies throughout their professional careers?

Perhaps Justice Sotomayor should be excused because our official ideology about judging is so degraded that she would sacrifice a position on the Supreme Court if she told the truth. Legal academics who defend what she did today have no such excuse. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[CB inserts hand into cabinet, slams door]

[now typing with one hand]

Wendy Long, downthread, nods her head rapidly and says:

Well, we’ve gotten to the point where Mike can speak for me, too. I was disgusted by Judge Sotomayor’s testimony (and some of the questioning by Senators).

I agree that she either perjured herself or is intellectually unqualified to sit on the Court. It has to be one or the other. A Larry Tribe or a Mike Seidman would never have answered questions this way.

Our Court needs smart, honest Justices. There can be no honest debate about the two schools of thought on the role of a judge and the role of the Court in our constitutional republic when this kind of dishonesty, or intellectual vacuity, is on one side of the debate. And the American people are being deprived of the promised transparency on this issue so that they can decide what mode of judging they support.

These fucking people kill me.

@chicago bureau: Ummm… Who came up with the umpire metaphor?

But this is all inside baseball. As one of the Hon. Sens. just reminded us, the Ricci circus act is still to come.

@SanFranLefty: I want to see other deities. It’s not You, it’s me.

@chicago bureau:
/clears yogurt from nostrils/

Makes me wonder if la Magdalene ever said “so, you think your shit don’t stink just because we never run out of wine around here?”

Sheldon Whitehouse is a name ripped from the Simpsons, complete with boat shoes and linen slacks.

@Nabisco fought the lawn (and the lawn won): Sheldon actually makes me think of another, lesser known cartoon.

MSNBC: Live coverage of the Sotomayor hearing, except when interrupted by a Florida murder, Rose Garden ceremony, Hillary speech…

If they cut away from Al, I’m gonna be pissed.

@SanFranLefty: Basically, they are asking whether I’m married to Jesus or not. Questions about an applicant’s marital status are prohibited under federal law. Ergo, I would have to sue them for everything they’ve got.

@Jamie Sommers says take this job & shove it!: You’re a nun?

@SanFranLefty: Maybe I am; maybe I’m not. They don’t know and they can’t ask that question. heh heh

And besides, maybe I’m married to Jesus Gonzalez.

@SanFranLefty: Domestic partnership.

Not that I would know, but it sounds like the grilling is a lot lighter than anyone would face getting into a Manhattan co-op.

It’s the Al Franken Decade Segment!

…and he’s blown five minutes trying to set up a question.

NB to Al: Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. If you wanna make the Internet a “common carrier,” introduce a bill.