Least NEW! thing promoted as "NEW!"

As is my wont, I'm scanning headlines at Memeorandum this morning, and I came across this:

I'm not clicking on that. I'm just blogging to say that I graduated from law school in 1981, before the Federalist Society was created to deal with the problem that law schools only presented what the NYT would now like to repackage as an alternative. This "alternative" was mind-crushingly pervasive back then, and those who made that so are responsible for the reaction they caused. I went to law school believing I'd have the opportunity to participate in a rich debate. That didn't happen.

I see the author here is Jeffrey Toobin. I know you must say the Toobin-specific things that you always say. That's already an entry in my Dictionary of Received Idea. 

"The first major turning point in Goldstein’s poker career came in 2008, when he put up the $10,000 fee to enter the World Series of Poker..."

"... a multiday extravaganza in Las Vegas. On the first night, after the tournament had ended for the day, Goldstein sat down at a table at the Bellagio. 'I end up playing without looking at my cards,' Goldstein said. That, to put it mildly, was an unconventional strategy. He bet wildly and recklessly, but his opponents were flummoxed by his blind aggression. Goldstein told me he ultimately played that way for 18 hours and won some $400,000...."

Writes Jeffrey Toobin in "He Was a Supreme Court Lawyer. Then His Double Life Caught Up With Him. Thomas Goldstein was a superstar in the legal world. He was also a secret high-stakes gambler, whose wild 10-year run may now land him in prison" (NYT).

"In case you're wondering, as I did, how my punishment for tweeting about Toobin compares to Toobin's suspension for his offense...."

"He was off air for eight months; I was off for seven. One month was the difference between punishment for jacking off at work versus commenting on the inadvisability of jacking off at work. On one hand, the people who made this call about me are gone from the network, so maybe I could let it lie. But on the other hand, many of my colleagues no doubt knew about my banning from air, but not the reasons behind it, thereby leaving the impression I must have done something tantamount to Toobining. I did not. I was told it was Jeff Zucker, now gone, who put this order in place and a deputy, also gone, who kept it there. I was also told I wasn't informed of the network's displeasure because I had just had a baby and someone in the old leadership thought I might be a 'loose cannon.' Not as loose as Toobin's.... In the #MeToo era, I have been asked to make public comment on basically every errant penis in the media, government, sports, and entertainment worlds, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else in the news, and at the expense of some amount of professional dignity. It is ironic that in shining a light on bad behavior, which is the right thing to do, you're still a woman on TV talking about penises...."

Writes Mary Katharine Ham, in "In the Age of Quiet Quitting, I Was Quiet Suspended, And I Can't Shut Up About It/On Toobin's wake, professionalism, and the lessons I thought we learned in #MeToo" (Substack).

"[W]hen I’m working at my desk, no videoconferencing app is running, my camera is switched off and the lens cover is in place, I don’t see why..."

"... I can’t work buck naked if I feel like it and the temperature permits. My wife says that, because we work for the same (very large) company, and thus people who know me know her, at least by association, I owe it to her to follow [the] convention [of wearing a shirt]. She even said that the day I appear shirtless on camera, even by accident, she will quit her job, change her name and file for divorce. I suspect she’s not entirely serious, but I also think I’m willing to live with those odds, because there’s zero chance of what she’s concerned about actually happening."

 
From a question to the WaPo advice columnist.

The columnist takes his side. I don't. He should wear a shirt just because his wife needs it to feel comfortable. And because: Jeffrey Toobin. It only seems like zero until it happens.

"Throughout, Barr affects a quasi-paternal tone when discussing Trump, as if the president were a naughty but good-hearted adolescent."

"When Trump says repeatedly that he fired the F.B.I. director James Comey because of the Russia investigation, Barr spins it as, 'Unfortunately, President Trump exacerbated things himself with his clumsy miscues, notably making imprecise comments in an interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt and joking around with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador the day after firing Comey.' The just-joking defense is a favorite for Barr, as it is for the former president. In a strikingly humorless book, there is one 'funny' line from Trump: '"Do you know what the secret is of a really good tweet?" he asked, looking at each of us one by one. We all looked blank. "Just the right amount of crazy," he said.'"

Writes Jeffrey Toobin in the NYT, reviewing William Barr's book, "One Damn Thing After Another."

(Yes, Jeffrey Toobin, speaking of "a naughty but good-hearted adolescent.")

The only thing I want to say about Toobin.

"Toobin isn’t just on CNN’s airwaves again — he was out mixing and mingling with his colleagues Tuesday night," The NY Post brays.

What's notable about the return of Toobin isn't that he was allowed back or that his colleagues are treating him like a colleague now that he is a colleague again.

I've been avoiding this story because — as I've said from the start — mishandling a camera and getting seen doing something that would be mundane in private should stimulate pity, discretion, and a rush toward forgetting. 

If it's true that what happened to Toobin was pure accident, we should react the way we do when we barge in on someone sitting on the toilet, which is to quickly say, "I'm sorry," and retreat as quickly as possible into the pretense that nothing happened. We don't laugh about it and go on for months calling this person "The Defecator" the way people are calling Jeffrey Toobin "The Masturbator."

But there is something I want to say about Toobin, and I'm not seeing the current headlines even mentioning it.

As I said last fall, there's a big difference if Toobin intentionally exhibited himself. It's possible that Toobin appropriated a captive audience for his sexual gratification:

"I think 27 years of superb reporting and commitment to The New Yorker should have been weighed against an incident that horribly embarrassed the magazine but mostly embarrassed himself."

Said Tina Brown, the former editor of The New Yorker, quoted in "The Undoing of Jeffrey Toobin How a leading man of legal journalism lost his sweetest gig" (NYT). 

Malcolm Gladwell, an important New Yorker writer, said: "I read the Condé Nast news release, and I was puzzled because I couldn’t find any intellectual justification for what they were doing. They just assumed he had done something terrible, but never told us what the terrible thing was. And my only feeling — the only way I could explain it — was that Condé Nast had taken an unexpected turn toward traditional Catholic teaching." He then, we're told he took out his... ... ... "Bible and read to a reporter an allegory from Genesis 38 in which God strikes down a man for succumbing to the sin of self-gratification."

And Masha Gessen, "who initially found the incident 'traumatic'" said: "I think it’s tragic that a guy would get fired for really just doing something really stupid. It is the Zoom equivalent of taking an inappropriately long lunch break, having sex during it and getting stumbled upon."

That's all from the near the end of the NYT article. What follows is this:  

But Mr. Toobin may not want anyone’s pity. Amid the 2018 Supreme Court confirmation process for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the journalist scoffed on CNN at Republicans who said white men, as a demographic, were being mistreated. “Garbage,” Mr. Toobin said. “All this whining about the poor plight of white men is ridiculous.”

Here's the Genesis 38 story, by the way. Not sure how what Catholics think about this story, but Gladwell and the NYT doesn't seem to care much about accurate textualism. It's not about "succumbing to the sin of self-gratification":

At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan.... Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.

Boy, what a minor character Er is! Onan got to be the eponym, but he's an eponym for something he didn't even do. As for the wife, she got slept with by 2 men, and we're not even told her name. 

CORRECTION: Sorry! She has a name. Tamar. The story continues (and it's more interesting than the Tale of Toobin):

When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.

Shelah is Judah's third son after Er and Onan. 

When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” “And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked. “I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said. “Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked. He said, “What pledge should I give you?” “Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes again. Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here,” they said. So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’” Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.” About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.” Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez. Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.

Rembrandt liked the story of Judah and Tamar: 

Strange gesture suggested — "If Biden were willing to grasp the nettle..."

I'm just glancing at the New Yorker... erstwhile home of Jeffrey Toobin, who made a strange gesture the other day — grasping and getting stung. I think I would have laughed at that headline in any case — "Joe Biden and the Possibility of a Remarkable Presidency/If Biden were willing to grasp the nettle, the sting would be real, but history would judge him well for trying." 

 

What is this stinging nettle? 

What if a woman had been caught — like Jeffrey Toobin — masturbating on camera during a Zoom business call?

This is my second burning-a-witch-at-the-stake post of the day... and I did not go looking for more witch-burning material. It fell on me in the normal course of blogging. 

I'm reading "Rose McGowan slams Jeffrey Toobin defenders amid ‘#MeToobin’ scandal" (NY Post): 

“Can you all imagine if a conservative woman was caught masturbating on an @zoom meeting like #MeToobin? If it had been a liberal woman? If it had been a [woman of color]?” the #MeToo activist wrote Tuesday on Twitter. 

Responding to another Twitter user, she mused, “Do you think there’d be liberal ‘intellectuals’ rising to defend her? She’d be burned at the stake.”

Really? I think if a woman mishandling her computer camera exposed herself accidentally, there would be tremendous sympathy and an immediate understanding that it would not be talked about — about like what you'd do if you walked in on someone using the toilet. If the circumstances indicated that she was intentionally exhibiting herself — could that have been the case with Toobin? — then I think people would regard her as having a very serious mental problem and would close ranks around her and try to protect and help her. In either case — accidental or intentional — I don't think a woman would have been as badly treated as Toobin — who has been ruthlessly ridiculed and humiliated.

The article about Jeffrey Toobin that I want to read.

Maybe I'm just not trying assiduously enough. (I'm only saying "assiduously" so you won't be distracted by wondering if I'm making puns.) But I can't find what I'm looking for. It's difficult to get past all the things that restate allegations I already know and present them as weird, confounding, and way out of line with anything in human nature that we can understand. 

What I would like to read is something that fits Toobin's behavior into human nature that we can understand. And by "Toobin's behavior," I mean the behavior understood both as a mistake and as deliberate. Either he intended his self-touching to be on camera or he didn't. The nakedness and self-touching, I'm assuming, was intentional.

I invite discussion of the question whether other people — perhaps lots of other people — are reacting to the extended lockdown and the use of remote video-conferencing by indulging in transgressions beyond the camera frame, which tends to show only the upper body. Is it so strange to imagine participating naked from the waist down? I believe I've heard late-night comedy hosts — who sit behind desks — joke "I'm not wearing pants." The idea and even the reality of Zooming while pantsless — it's not unique to Jeffrey Toobin, is it? 

Actually masturbating is a major escalation beyond the silly comfort of pantlessness, so there is that, but, again, I invite you to discuss the topic. (Or is the word "masturbating" being used to describe the mere grasping of one's naked erect penis?)

Many Zoomers — including, I think, Toobin — are using laptop computers, and this creates a risk of repositioning the camera. You might close the lid as a way to end your participation, creating a brief view of your lower body before the camera shuts off. This could explain what Toobin calls a "mistake."

We also need to consider whether a person — perhaps Toobin — is actually excited by giving his interlocutors a quick glimpse — that it's exhibitionism. A person might derive kinky pleasure from flashing a quick glimpse of his nakedness. A person — perhaps Toobin — might think: They'll wonder What the hell am I seeing? No way! He may trust that they won't do anything about it. They'll just think: Oh, poor Jeffrey, so embarrassing. We'll all just pretend we didn't see that. 

If Jeffrey — or whoever — thinks like that, he could also progress to thinking something more like: I am free! I can do this and get away with it! They'll all pretend they didn't see! And then he chooses to do it, for the fun, for the transgression, for the liberation from boredom.

I'm not recommending this line of thought and behavior, just trying to think how could he? Just thinking like a novelist... and like a person with a moral compunction against singling out one person and treating him like he's way off the norm. A sympathetic reading of a person demands that we see his actions as recognizable human behavior.

"The New Yorker has suspended reporter Jeffrey Toobin... because he exposed himself during a Zoom call last week between members of the New Yorker and WNYC radio."

"Toobin said in a statement to Motherboard: 'I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers. I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video".... 'Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted,' CNN said in a statement."

Vice reports, referring to this as the "Zoom Dick Incident."

Who believes he thought he was off camera? Even if he thought he had "muted the Zoom video," how could he not make absolutely sure before bringing his penis out and why would that be something he'd do during a Zoom call anyway?!

ADDED: The headline at The Washington Post is "The New Yorker suspends writer Jeffrey Toobin after accidental Zoom exposure," and the highest rated comment is: "How do you know it was 'accidental'? Wouldn't more neutral language be to just say he exposed himself and quote him as saying it was inadvertent? Isn't it for the investigation to determine whether it was an 'accident' or not?" 

AND: There's an update — a hell of an update — at Vice now: "This piece has been updated with more detail about the call and the headline has been updated to reflect that Toobin was masturbating."

Two people who were on the call told Motherboard separately that the call was an election simulation featuring many of the New Yorker's biggest stars: Jane Mayer was playing establishment Republicans; Evan Osnos was Joe Biden, Jelani Cobb was establishment Democrats, Masha Gessen played Donald Trump, Andrew Marantz was the far right, Sue Halpern was left wing democrats, Dexter Filkins was the military, and Jeffrey Toobin playing the courts. There were also a handful of other producers on the call from the New Yorker and WNYC. Both people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, noted that it was unclear how much each individual person on the call saw, but both of the people we spoke to said that they saw Toobin jerking off.... The sources said that when the groups returned from their break out rooms, Toobin lowered the camera. The people on the call said they could see Toobin touching his penis. Toobin then left the call. Moments later, he called back in, seemingly unaware of what his colleagues had been able to see, and the simulation continued....

And the stimulation did not continue (one presumes).

This may be the stupidest thing I have seen in 17 years of blogging.

PLUS: "seemingly unaware" is funny. I'm picturing: He realizes he's on camera, leaves the call, hoping it might work to call back and act like nothing happened. Oh, hello...

ALSO: Heh...

Crazy story, can't believe they had Jane Mayer as their stand-in for Republicans. https://t.co/b8xCNt41s6

— Ramesh Ponnuru (@RameshPonnuru) October 19, 2020

"I’ve written hundreds of stories, blog posts, magazine articles and, finally, a book on Blagojevich’s case. There was one sentiment I heard over and over again..."

"... which went something like, 'I know Blagojevich was guilty as hell but 14 years is insane.' That’s why President Donald Trump likely risks little political blowback by commuting the sentence of his onetime Apprentice contestant, even in the state that Blagojevich disgraced."

Writes Natasha Korecki in Politico.

And here's Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker, "The Trouble with Donald Trump's Clemencies and Pardons":

Authoritarianism is usually associated with a punitive spirit—a leader who prosecutes and incarcerates his enemies. But there is another side to this leadership style. Authoritarians also dispense largesse, but they do it by their own whims, rather than pursuant to any system or legal rule. The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and generous, come from a single source. That’s the real lesson—a story of creeping authoritarianism—of today’s commutations and pardons by President Trump....

[T]he pardons were entirely personal in origin.... A benevolent leader dispensed favors.... In this era of mass incarceration, many people deserve pardons and commutations, but this is not the way to go about it. 

Here's Wikipedia's list of Trump's pardons and commutations. Did Toobin just look at yesterday's announcements? It seems to me that Trump has granted clemency to some ordinary but deserving people caught in our "mass incarceration."

Toobin concludes:

All Trump has done is to prove that he can reward his friends and his friends’ friends. The chilling corollary is that he knows he can punish his enemies, too.

Granting clemency is a normal part of executive power, an explicit provision of the Constitution. Did Toobin indulge in this kind of "chilling corollary" reasoning when Obama was President?

By the way, why didn't Obama commute Blagojevich's sentence?

Skewering of the day.

i doubt it. people have short memories. there's a reason we don't call toobin the "married man who knocked up a former colleague's daughter and had to be taken to court to pay child support." https://t.co/VwKLnoLQXj

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) April 9, 2019

"Well, I don't know if I received bad information, but I think I suspected that there was more than there actually was."

Said John Brennan, who once led the CIA, quoted at "$25 Million Later, 3 Pundits Kind-of-Sort-of Change Their Minds on Collusion/Shockingly, most people are sticking to their guns" (Reason).

Doesn't it seem wrong that the former director of the CIA is now a "pundit"? And why wasn't he a better pundit? He's just... people gave me information and I was kinda confused by it. But at least he's not digging in, like the rest of the embarrassed clowns.

Who are the other 2 pundits? Jeffrey Toobin ("Certainly the most important thing is the total vindication of the president and his staff on the issue of collusion. There's just no way around that") and Joe Scarborough ("the release of Robert Mueller's report was the best day of [Trump's] presidency. But also another big headline: It is good news").

"In 'Seven Days in May,' a popular novel from the early nineteen-sixties that became a movie, a cabal of military officers conspire to overthrow the President of the United States..."

"... whom they regard as unduly sympathetic to the Soviet Union. The story, along with such other Cold War fantasies as 'Fail Safe' and 'Dr. Strangelove,' belongs to a genre that shares certain assumptions and plot points. The President is a reasonable fellow, doing his best to insure the survival of the planet, and the villains are the defenders of the permanent bureaucracy, usually the military. Things don’t always end well in these sagas—to wit, the destruction of New York City, in 'Fail Safe,' and of civilization, in 'Strangelove'—but the underlying message is that the President always has the interests of the American people at heart. The genre received a nonfiction update last week, when Andrew McCabe published 'The Threat"... [about] eight days in May of 2017.... McCabe’s tale is like a photo negative of the Cold War stories. Now the contest pits a despotic and, at times, seemingly deranged President against shocked and horrified bureaucrats scrambling to safeguard the basic principles of our democracy."

Writes Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker.

I don't think Toobin meant to imply that "The Threat" is a work of fiction — and a cheesy one at that — a mere "popular novel," in the genre of "Cold War fantasies."

Is Trump trying to coax Clarence Thomas to retire in time for him to snag one more Supreme Court appointment?

According to Jeffrey Toobin (at The New Yorker).

With fifty-three Republicans now in the Senate (and no filibusters allowed on Supreme Court nominations), President Trump would have a free hand in choosing a dream candidate for his conservative base if Thomas were to retire this year. The summer of 2019 would seem an ideal time to add a third younger conservative to the Court... It’s true that Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, would likely violate his Merrick Garland rule and try to push through a nominee in 2020, an election year, but 2019 would be much easier to navigate. So, many conservatives are asking, why shouldn’t Thomas leave now?

It seems that the President may have had the same thought. Trump has shown unusual solicitude for Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni, a hard-right political activist. The President and the First Lady had the Thomases to dinner, and then Trump welcomed Ginni and some of her movement colleagues to the White House for an hour-long discussion.... Trump rarely engages in this kind of cultivation, and it’s reasonable to speculate that he’s trying to persuade the Justice that his seat would be in good hands if he decided to leave.

But will Thomas retire?... [A]ccording to his friends, he feels an obligation to continue doing the job for as long as he is able, regardless of the political implications of his departure....

He's only 70, and Justices these days hang on into their 80s. Why wouldn't he? He only just acquired the distinction of being the longest-serving Justice.

The CNN headline says "Toobin calls out Kavanaugh's 'weird' interview."

Toobin is on CNN, talking about Kavanaugh's interview, and guess what he calls "weird"?



According to Toobin, Kavanaugh disrupted the usual appearance of nonpartisanship for Supreme Court nominees by going on Fox News, AKA "Republican television." That's what's "weird"! "Go on the 'Today' show, go on '20/20'" he advised. I'd say what's weird is the pretense that anyplace is neutral.

What does "weird" mean anyway? Originally, "weird" was a noun that meant fate or destiny or someone with the power to control destiny. As an adjective, it meant having the power to control fate. Think of the "weird sisters" in "MacBeth."

In the 1800s, the meaning becomes "Partaking of or suggestive of the supernatural; of a mysterious or unearthly character; unaccountably or uncomfortably strange; uncanny" (OED). The poet Shelley wrote, "Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave, Who had stolen human shape." And then it was "Out of the ordinary course, strange, unusual; hence, odd, fantastic." There was Charles Dickens writing, "He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them."

The OED recognizes the colloquial phrase "weird and wonderful" — meaning "marvellous in a strange or eccentric way; both remarkable and peculiar or unfathomable; exotic, outlandish. Frequently ironical or derogatory." Oscar Wilde wrote, "There is psychology of a weird and wonderful kind." And T. E. Lawrence wrote, "Their food is weird and wonderful." This intrigued me. "Weird and wonderful" is a standard phrase. I'll never hear "Bennie and the Jets" the same way again:

Oh, but they're weird and they're wonderful
Oh, Bennie, she's really keen
She's got electric boots
A mohair suit
You know I read it in a magazine
B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets

Oh, but he's weird and he's wonderful/Jeffrey Toobin is really keen/He's got electric news/Contemptuous boos/It's the best news I've ever seen....

Jeffrey Toobin vs. Alan Dershowitz.

I got to that via a WaPo piece titled "Jeffrey Toobin to his former professor Alan Dershowitz: ‘What’s happened to you?,'" which makes it seem as though Toobin got the better of Dershowitz, which is certainly not how I would score it. The clip ends with Dershowitz giving a definitive defense of himself as consistent on rule-of-law arguments: "I’m not carrying [Trump's] water. I’m saying the exact same thing I’ve said for 50 years. And Jeffrey, you ought to know that, you were my student.The fact that it applies to Trump now rather than applying to Bill Clinton is why people like you have turned against me."

In the WaPo article, but not in the clip:

“None of my liberal friends invite me to dinner anymore,” he said. “Thanks to Donald Trump, I’ve lost seven pounds. I call it the Donald Trump diet.”

Just use the other Donald Trump diet: McDonald's.  But I love the (presumably humorous) notion that the only way for a liberal elitist to get fed is by inclusion in dinner parties.

I advise Neil Gorsuch to bring a sandwich to oral arguments and eat in front of everyone.

Let's see how that happened.

1. I wrote a post called "We sent you Unclubbable Neil!" in which I tweak Jeffrey Toobin for writing "Perhaps Gorsuch will, as the years pass, prove to be a more clubbable colleague...." and consult the OED for the definition of "clubbable" and the older word "unclubbable."

2. The commenter Henry remembers that the word "unclubbable" appears in the description of the The Diogenes Club, in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter":

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.

3. I do a little reading on Diogenes:

Diogenes... became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He criticized and embarrassed Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting attendees by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having publicly mocked Alexander the Great.

4.  Distracting attendees by bringing food and eating during the discussions? I say:

Note to Neil Gorsuch: Emulate Diogenes by bringing a sandwich to oral arguments and eating.

5. Why a sandwich though? Where did that come from? It's the most food food to me. Warren Zevon said: "Enjoy every sandwich." And I don't know what Diogenes ate, except that it is sometimes said that he died from eating raw octopus.

Now, leave Neil Gorsuch alone while he prepares for the next oral argument:

We sent you Unclubbable Neil!

Forgive me, but I need to talk about Jeffrey Toobin again. I started the blog-day with a long Toobin-focused post, but now I'm reading Instapundit:

MORE SUPPORT for my theory, expressed earlier, that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the source in that Jeffrey Toobin anti-Gorsuch piece from last week. If RBG can’t handle having Gorsuch around, perhaps she should retire.

The first link there goes to the same Toobin piece I already wrote about and the second one goes to an Instapundit post titled "I’M GONNA GO WITH 'NOT BADLY ENOUGH'" and linking to a Jeffrey Toobin piece from a few days ago titled "How Badly Is Neil Gorsuch Annoying the Other Supreme Court Justices?"

There's something I want to talk about in that other Toobinity:

As Linda Greenhouse observed in the Times at the end of Gorsuch’s first term, he managed to violate the Court’s traditions as soon as he arrived. He dominated oral arguments, when new Justices are expected to hang back. He instructed his senior colleagues, who collectively have a total of a hundred and forty years’ experience on the Court, about how to do their jobs. Dissenting from a decision that involved the interpretation of federal laws, he wrote, “If a statute needs repair, there’s a constitutionally prescribed way to do it. It’s called legislation.” Perhaps he thought that the other Justices were unfamiliar with this thing called “legislation.” Gorsuch also expressed ill-disguised contempt for Anthony Kennedy’s landmark opinion legalizing same-sex marriage in all fifty states. Earlier this year, the Court’s majority overturned an Arkansas ruling that the state could refuse to put the name of a birth mother’s same-sex spouse on their child’s birth certificate. Dissenting, Gorsuch wrote, “Nothing in Obergefell spoke (let alone clearly) to the question.” That “let alone clearly” reflected a conservative consensus that Kennedy’s opinion was a confusing mess.

Perhaps Gorsuch will, as the years pass, prove to be a more clubbable colleague; or perhaps he’ll decide, at least socially, to go his own way....

A more clubbable colleague...



Oh, sorry. I'm supposed to read that like a New Yorker reader, someone who is upper class or striving to feel upper class. Here's the Oxford English Dictionary definition of "clubbable":

Having such qualities as fit one to be a member of a club; sociable.

1791 J. Boswell Life Johnson anno 1783 II. 475 Boswell (said he) is a very clubable man. [Johnson is said to have used unclubable sometime earlier: see unclubbable adj.]

Okay, let's see "unclubbable." (Unclubbable/That's what you are/Unclubbable/That's Gorsuch so far....) "Unclubbable" is the older word, and "clubbable" is the back-formation. The OED defines "unclubbable" as said of a person who is "not suitable for membership of a club owing to lack of sociability or desire to conform; (of a characteristic) that does not inspire friendly relations; unsociable." The oldest usage in print is:

?1764 F. Burney Early Jrnls. & Lett. (1994) III. 76 Sir John was a most unclubable man!

So the question becomes: Is the Supreme Court a social club, where the old members have their established manner and the new man must fit in? One thing that's very unclublike: The Court doesn't get to decide if it wants to let the new person in. He's been sent in by the President and the Senate, who got their power from the people, and we're a diverse bunch, quite rowdy and ornery many of us. You wouldn't want me in your club, and I'm a lot nicer than many — probably millions — of very rude folk who vote.  

We sent you Unclubbable Neil and you're stuck with him. We clubbed you over the head with him.