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Thursday, June 07, 2007
Is Tom Wolfe on Justice Scalia's (Clerk's) Reading List?
This passage from Justice Scalia's dissent in the recent case of Zuni Public School District No. 89 v. Department of Education just sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Why should we suppose that in matters more likely to arouse the judicial libido -- voting rights, antidiscrimination laws, or environmental protection, to name only a few -- a judge in the School of Textual Subversion would not find it convenient (yea, righteous! ) to assume that Congress must have meant, not what it said, but what he knows to be best?
If I were Tom Wolfe, I would consider a variety of stylistic factors here -- the invocation of the libido, the Coining of Capital Letters, the italics, the interjection, the exclamation point! -- and decide whether to feel flattered or whether to take legal action.
Posted by Paul Horwitz on June 7, 2007 at 11:23 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Naaah... it's not fast enough to be Wolfe-inspired. Although Wolfe does have an extended love-affair with the Republicans, and Bush is said to have loved Charlotte Simmons. (Classlessly in my own words, from an unkind book review of same, "How much did the taxpayers pay Haliburton to read it to him?")
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jun 15, 2007 4:14:41 PM
My Zuni anecdote (lame thought it may be) is that I remember reading that case and thinking "wow - what the hell has he held back for the Carhart dissent? Where do you go to trump that?" Of course, the following week, Carhart came down and it turned out Kennedy hadn't ratted, but on some level it had just never really settled into my mind that the good guys might win that case.
Posted by: Simon | Jun 7, 2007 9:53:32 PM
Harriet Miers told me that Scalia is the best justice -- ever!
Posted by: steve lubet | Jun 7, 2007 5:08:49 PM
I've read very little Wolfe so can't say if it looks much like that. It does, however, look a lot like the stereotype of how a 12 year old girl writes in her diary.
Posted by: Matt | Jun 7, 2007 12:21:20 PM
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