f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

As he touts at his website, Steve Bainbridge was quoted at

length in a Knight Ridder article yesterday, on the importance

of an American Bar Association rating to Harriet Miers’ quest

to become an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

(“ABA’s probe of Miers’ record, rating may be key for confirma-

tion,” Oct. 12, 2005)

 

Here’s how the article presents the core of Prof. Bainbridge’s

remarks (emphasis added):

“The problem here is that the people who most need 

convincing are the people who are least likely to trust the

ABA,” Bainbridge said, noting that many conservatives

view the ABA as part of a liberal legal establishment. “A

lot of us resigned from ABA after getting fed up with its

establishment-left liberalism. If she were one of us, she’d

have quit, too.”  . . .

 

“She has the kind of qualifications that are sort of classic

ABA qualifications,” said UCLA professor Bainbridge.

“President of a bar, active in the ABA, managing partner

of a big firm. The bulk of the committee that will decide her

rating is composed of people who look like her.”

 

  That’s right, Harriet didn’t follow the harrumphing herd of

Heffalumps out of the ABA, so she is suspect.  In a leadership position,

she stayed to fight.  Meanwhile, the whiny guys who keep telling us

they deserve a seat on the Supreme Court because they have hung in

at institutions where they are a persecuted and mocked minority —

yes, those heroic figures — think Harriet should have capitulated,

leaving the nation’s most important general bar association fully

under the sway of the evil, hated Liberals.  Pathetic grasping at

straws.  Or, is it pathetic group-think by a bunch of self-proclaimed

rugged individualists?

 

p.s. Don’t even get me started about the phrase

“people who look just like her.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stepping on

sidewalk ants     the boy

everyone bullies

 

 

 

 

 

 

the anger from work

in my son’s birthday balloons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the son

who argues everything

I study his face

in a puddle

 

 

 

George Swede from Almost Unseen

(Brooks Books, 2000) 

 

 

One bath

after another–

how stupid

        — ISSA