Merrick Garland "took a 50 percent pay cut; traded in his elegant partner’s office for a windowless closet that smelled of stale cigarette smoke."

"This was a time when crime here in Washington had reached epidemic proportions and he wanted to help. And he quickly made a name for himself going after corrupt politicians and violent criminals. His sterling record as a prosecutor led him to the Justice Department, where he oversaw some of the most significant prosecutions in the 1990s, including overseeing every aspect of the federal response to the Oklahoma City bombing. In the aftermath of that act of terror, when 168 people, many of them small children, were murdered, Merrick had one evening to say goodbye to his own young daughters before he boarded a plane to Oklahoma City and he would remain there for weeks. He worked side by side with first responders, rescue workers, local and federal law enforcement. He led the investigation and supervised the prosecution that brought Timothy McVeigh to justice. But perhaps most important is the way he did it. Throughout the process, Merrick took pains to do everything by the book. When people offered to turn over evidence voluntarily, he refused, taking the harder root of obtaining the proper subpoenas instead, because Merrick would take no chances that someone who murdered innocent Americans might go free on a technicality."

From Obama's introduction of his Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

ADDED: I quoted that because I liked it. Real facts, beautifully stated. But, of course, the political stuff had to follow. I know he's compelled to say things like this, but I am compelled to say I don't believe it:

At a time when our politics are so polarized, at a time when norms and customs of political rhetoric and courtesy and comity are so often treated like they are disposable, this is precisely the time when we should play it straight...

... though I don't consider that to be playing it straight...

and treat the process of appointing a Supreme Court justice with the seriousness and care it deserves because our Supreme Court really is unique. It’s supposed to be above politics. It has to be. 

... and it can't possibly be...

And it should stay that way.

... which assumes a fact that can't possibly be in evidence. 

To suggest that someone as qualified and respected as Merrick Garland doesn’t even deserve a hearing, let alone an up or down vote, to join an institution as important as our Supreme Court, when two-thirds of Americans believe otherwise, that would be unprecedented. To suggest that someone who has served his country with honor and dignity, with a distinguished track record of delivering justice for the American people might be treated, as one Republican leader stated, as a political pinata. That can’t be right.

Yeah, well, it can be right, and you'd be saying it's right if you were in the Senate and a GOP President made a nomination this close to the election. But I know you have to say that. These are the lines in political theater, and you have delivered them with persuasive elegance — complete with the subtle articulation of the tilde on "piñata."

Now, Republicans, take your turn on the stage with refined gestures that don't look like swinging at a piñata.

ADDED: Time's transcript has a homophone typo: "taking the harder root."

"A Self is interesting to oneself and others, it acts as a sort of rudder in all the vicissitudes of life..."

"... and it thereby defines what used to be known as a career," wrote Jacques Barzun to his grandson, the lawprof, Charles Barzun, quoted by my son Jaltcoh here. The grandson had asked for help with what he called "a genuine crisis of identity... "brought on by the events of 9/11 and partly by my own discovery that I could not have cared less about my job." The grandfather assured him that he would find his way, which would look "like a path marked on a map" and "you will have made a Self, which is indeed a desirable possession."

The elder Barzun likens identity to a path and then to a rudder. Life is a journey. That's a very widely used metaphor. All these people who think of life as a journey: What are they picturing? Do they see a wilderness where you can find — or break — a path? Or do they see a map where you can mark a path? Or is it a journey over the ocean, in which your body is a ship, and what you want is a rudder?

The seafaring image implicit in Barzun's "rudder" made me think of that popular old poem that ends "I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul." I haven't heard that poem — "Invictus" — quoted in a long time, perhaps because it was overquoted to the point of triteness and nowadays people don't read poetry — other than in children's books. They'll listen to poetry, including the endless doggerel of rap (which is, perhaps, inspired by many childhood readings of Dr. Seuss books). But there was a time when lots of ordinary people knew the last verse of "Invictus" by heart.

I'm reading the Wikipedia page for "Invictus," scanning the long list of items under the heading "Influence." It begins with "Casablanca" (where "I am the master of my fate" is used ironically). The next item features Ronald Reagan:

In the 1945 film Kings Row, Parris Mitchell, a psychiatrist played by Robert Cummings, recites the first two stanzas of "Invictus" to his friend Drake McHugh, played by Ronald Reagan, before revealing to Drake that his legs were unnecessarily amputated by a cruel doctor.

Next, another President, FDR, at least the FDR of the 1958 play Sunrise at Campobello. Further down we encounter Nelson Mandela, who recited the poem to hearten his fellow prisoners. There's also Aung San Suu Kyi. And then... it's chilling to encounter this after beginning this post with the crisis of identity brought on by 9/11:

The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh quoted the poem in its entirety as his final (written) statement.

The terrorists are out and about on their own ships in the seafaring journey of life, and they've got their rudders. Emergency inspiration available here.

Shouting "tyrant!" at Michael Muskasey, did Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders intend to cause fear of assassination?

Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders confesses that he was the one who shouted "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!" at Attorney General Michael Mukasey, during Mukasey's speech at a Federalist Society dinner:

"Frankly, everybody in the room was applauding or sometimes laughing, and I thought, 'I've got to stand up and say something.' And I did," Sanders told The Seattle Times Tuesday. "I stood up and said, 'Tyrant,' then I sat down again, then I left."

It wasn't until the next morning — when he turned on the TV in his hotel room — that Sanders learned what happened after he departed: Mukasey, later in his speech, began slurring his words, slumped at the podium and passed out.

Mukasey didn't faint immediately upon hearing those words, so maybe you think it's hard to pin the fainting on Sanders. But consider how stressful it might be to hear "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!" shouted from a crowd like that.

The words immediately call to mind "sic semper tyrannis":

The phrase is a shortened version of Sic semper evello mortem Tyrannis, which translated means "Thus always death comes to tyrants." ...

The phrase is originally attributed to Marcus Junius Brutus, the central figure in the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC.... In American history, because of the association with the assassination of Caesar, John Wilkes Booth reportedly shouted the phrase after shooting United States President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Timothy McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt with this phrase and a picture of Lincoln on it when he was arrested on April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing.

An unknown person in a large crowd shouts "tyrant" at a political leader. If he knows history, it should strike fear into his heart. It would feel like the prelude to assassination. And yet, you would keep speaking. Nothing has happened yet, so of course, you go on, terror gnawing at your consciousness...

... men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth....