Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapses during speech

November 20, 2008 8:53 PM

Attorney General Michael Mukasey was giving a speech tonight at the Federalist Society meeting tonight when he collapsed on stage. Talking Points Memo has a report from an eyewitness.

The TPM article goes into detail about the contents of the speech before he collapsed. Apparently he was defending the administrations use of torture and why there shouldn't be prosecutions of officials who approved it.

posted by Bonzai (187 comments total)

May God have waterboarding on his soul.
posted by isopraxis at 9:07 PM on November 20, 2008 [16 favorites]

An FBI official said Mukasey got stuck on a word during his speech to the conservative legal group, repeated it several times and then "went down hard."

And that word was Obama.
posted by Sailormom at 9:08 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

c'mon. nothing funny about an old man collapsing - he's probably somebody's dad.
posted by moxiedoll at 9:13 PM on November 20, 2008 [10 favorites]

[Out-of-the-gate derail removed. Snarky editorial tags are a good way to sink a post, so please don't do that if you care about your post not getting nixed, please.]
posted by cortex at 9:15 PM on November 20, 2008

He's somebody's dad who defends torture and argues that torturers should not be punished?

Fuck him.
posted by rokusan at 9:16 PM on November 20, 2008 [14 favorites]

On people like this, absent real heartfelt contrition, I wish severe public humiliation, damaging, career ending legal repercussions, and a lasting reputation as an Evil Person.


But not a stroke.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:18 PM on November 20, 2008 [30 favorites]

I can't stand Mukasey myself, but try as I might I can't make a joke about someone having a stroke. I do hope that perhaps the extraordinary care and compassion he'll certainly receive may prompt him to reconsider his defense of policies that so criminally deprive others of even the most basic care and compassion.
posted by scody at 9:18 PM on November 20, 2008 [24 favorites]

Guilt, punishment, sin.

I recently heard that someone who (I perceived) fucked me over personally had had some health issues and I immediately felt bad for him. I want my enemies to fail, perhaps, but I don't want them to get felled by illness, that's not fair.

Yet when I read this, it's impossible for me to feel the slightest sympathy for Mukasey. It's a lot nicer fate than the fate he's gleefully applied to many completely innocent individuals.

When you read about things like this, or things like this, you really wonder how the superstitious people who support the evil-doers don't see the hammer of God in action.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:25 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

Would there be as much sympathy for him if he collapsed while, as the current Attorney General, defending child rape before a meeting of NAMbLA members? If not, why not? I don't think what he did was any less pernicious. Perhaps even worse.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:26 PM on November 20, 2008 [8 favorites]

God I phrased that awkwardly. What I meant to say is, Holy Fucking Baal, has it come to this, that we are willing to just give best wishes for a speedy recovery, and act offended when some people express glee that a man trying his best to turn the DoJ into Torquemada's Inquisition might be removed from his duties by the hand of fate while he argues against any repercussions for people who ordered innocents tortured to death? Can I add any more clauses to that sentence?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:35 PM on November 20, 2008 [9 favorites]

I'm sorry he collapsed. But I'd like to see him in prison.
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:38 PM on November 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

A few places (didn't check the above links since I've already seen the story) have the video up and it's disturbing.
posted by empyrean at 9:38 PM on November 20, 2008

Here's one of the many reasons why I feel no sympathy for this evil man.

To summarize the link, they just released five Afghans who were detained for almost seven years without ever any charges being filed against them. One of them has a child who died during this period; another has a six-year-old daughter he's never seen. They were abused and tortured, yet there was not one shred of evidence against them.

Mukasey was part of the group who organized this. Mukasey and his team have worked extremely diligently to prevent these Afghans and many like them from ever getting any sort of trial. I'm sure Mukasey was bitterly disappointed at this; I hope dearly that this contributed to his medical incident.

These aren't gentlemen with whom we have a minor disagreement in principle. This man is part of a cabal who seized the government, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in foreign wars, looted the Treasury, and systematically destroyed the rule of law.

They are a grave danger to the world. Anything that removes any of them from power is a good thing.

I repeat: a stroke or similar medical incident is far better than this evil man deserves (which is prosecution and a very long jail sentence).
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:39 PM on November 20, 2008 [24 favorites]

scody writes "I do hope that perhaps the extraordinary care and compassion he'll certainly receive may prompt him to reconsider his defense of policies that so criminally deprive others of even the most basic care and compassion."

Nice comment, I favorited it.

But.

That won't happen, because Mukasey's all for compassion. For people.

No one would be torturing, or defending it, if they really believed the victims were people, people like themselves.

That's the crux of the matter: for Mukasey and those like him, suspected terrorists, potential enemies, brown Muslims, just aren't real people. They aren't really among those whom Jesus bled and died to redeem.

Like Kulaks or Jews in Auschwitz or black slaves, they may move like people, they may talk like people, they may even bleed when you prick them, but to the torturers, to the guards at the Vernichtungslagern, to the slave-holder, they're ultimately not really people.

Mukasey will get his care, he'll get well, and with a clear and untroubled conscience, he'll return to his important work of justifying treating what are to him merely clever animals, like animals.
posted by orthogonality at 9:43 PM on November 20, 2008 [22 favorites]

Here's the video. I'm very impressed how fast Google Video indexed it.

It's extremely calm - he just droops a bit and then someone comes and holds him up before he falls over. I've seen guests on Saturday Night Live who were worse off.

I was hoping for more screaming, perhaps some begging for forgiveness from God or a deathbed confession.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:45 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I repeat: a stroke or similar medical incident is far better than this evil man deserves (which is prosecution and a very long jail sentence).

I think I'd rather sit in jail for many years than suffer a stroke and its consequences.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:47 PM on November 20, 2008

Was there any possible outcome for this thread, other than the "He deserves it" vs "We shouldn't wish ill health on anyone" debate?
posted by Clandestine Outlawry at 9:52 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

Oh wow, the ending of the eyewitness account is just gold:

After Mukasey was taken away the audience was led in a prayer for Mukasey by former Congressman David McIntosh (R-IN).

Yes, dear Great Invisible Wizard in the whirling firmament above, please help our friend in need, struck down mid-torture-defending-sentence by an illness of Your Divine Will. I beseech Thee, it is Thou who hast erred.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:53 PM on November 20, 2008 [24 favorites]

You know, I hate it when this happens. Because we see the nasty side of a lot of Mefites.

It's the difference between heroes and antiheroes. It's the stuff of comic storylines where an antihero 'goes too far' and must be brought in. It's the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

Sorry for the comics reference, but it's what my mind can most easily reach for at the moment: it's why when you're a kid, you know it'd be out of character for Superman to bring Luthor to justice by amputating one of Luthor's arms with Supes' heat vision. Why wouldn't he do that, when Luthor just detonated a bomb and blew up several levels of a building? Because Superman doesn't do that: it's not heroic, and it's not right. Hell, if Batman did that, he'd most likely have the entire JLA trying to bring him in. (Yeah, I'm a comics geek. I'm hardly alone amongst Mefites for being one.)

So out here in the real world, we're dealing with real life villains now: people who authorized torture, who hurt the innocents. That means they need to be brought to justice. That means that they stand in front of a court of law, are sentenced for their crimes, and are sent to jail for a very long time.

That's most likely not going to happen for most of the Bush Administration decisionmakers. But that doesn't make the real-life version of "amputating their limbs with heat vision" any more "just."

Tony Snow didn't deserve colon cancer. Michael Mukasey didn't deserve a stroke. They each did deserve utter blame and criminal charges for their actions. Hell, if we want to go all the way, let's consider World Court appearances for complicity in genocide, given the Iraqi civilian death count. But Robbie, Kendall and Kristie Snow now have a dead dad, and someday they may bring up a webpage and read comments of liberals dancing on their dad's grave. And Mark and Jessica Mukasey may have a dead or seriously hurt father this evening. And, sorry, that's not something I think is funny, or right, or just.

It's utterly ironic considering the faults to which people claim Snow and Mukasey are complicit.

What did they do? The Bush Administration decided that an individual experiencing massive pain was something that was just, because they labeled that person as part of a group they considered antithetical to the welfare of things good and righteous in this world.

And now in order to condemn such an evil action, people are deciding that an Administration official experiencing massive (or, in Snow's case, fatal) pain is something that is just, because they label that person as part of an Administration they consider antithetical to the welfare of things good and righteous in this world.
posted by WCityMike at 9:57 PM on November 20, 2008 [26 favorites]

[expletive deleted] writes "After Mukasey was taken away the audience was led in a prayer for Mukasey by former Congressman David McIntosh (R-IN)."

I wonder how often any McIntosh or any of the audience have prayed for the victims of American torture. I can't help thinking of Mark Twain's War Prayer, which Twain wrote in response to an earlier period of American Imperialism.
posted by orthogonality at 9:58 PM on November 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

I apologize for my snarky off-the-cuff remark. I wish no ill will to anyone, much less the worry and concern of a family for their father. I would never want to have to wonder about the honor of my father after he was gone. I apologise for the courseness of my statement.

The difficult thing with this one is that there is a measure of pain and injustice that I can't seem to choke back. Twelve to fifteen year-old children were tortured at the behest of Mukasey, among countless others of which I cannot begin to guess how many innocents like Maher Arar were forced to confess to fabrications under horrible physical and psycholgical pain in countless CIA blacksites and gulags.

As it stands, Mukasey's legal standpoint strikes me as a sham, a charade of justice, the American ideal of fair trial and the greater human (and Christian) principle of do unto others as you would have them do to you. And though I do not wish a recompense pain to be his, I only hope that in the fading hours of his mortality that he can give better dimension to the well intentioned, yet misguided error of his public statements and aborted stewardship of public faith. Yet I cannot take such an abbrogation of duty lightly. Do we hold our public representatives to be totally irresponsible in what they bring about?

The life you lead isn't nearly as important as the life you leave to everyone's children. Not just your own priveleged offspring.
Let's hope that Mukasey still has the chance to leave an honorable legacy to his.
But I believe that he has already had the luxury to choose between right or wrong, and I think he has chosen very poorly in the interests of greater humanity.

May the merciful have mercy.
Let the waterboarders have waterboarding, if only that they might see how misguided they were in their judgements and nothing more.
posted by isopraxis at 10:00 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

wow - do you people mean that voting for obama makes me immune to old age, stroke, heart attack and various nasty diseases? - i must have missed the memo ...

youth - it's wasted on the young
posted by pyramid termite at 10:06 PM on November 20, 2008

I'm torn. On the one hand, an old man collapsed and may be dying. That's always funny. But on the other hand, taking pleasure in this would put me on the same side as the bleeding heart hate squad.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:07 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

WCityMike writes "But Robbie, Kendall and Kristie Snow now have a dead dad, and someday they may bring up a webpage and read comments of liberals dancing on their dad's grave. And Mark and Jessica Mukasey may have a dead or seriously hurt father this evening. And, sorry, that's not something I think is funny, or right, or just."

God forbid that we offend the children of child torturers and apologists for torture by telling the truth.

Her father had one of the most powerful roles during the Holocaust, but Gudrun refused to see it. Her love and respect for her father kept her alive and constantly fighting for her name. "At fourteen . . . she cut out every picture of him from the newspapers and glued them into a large scrapbook" (Lebert, 155).... Even through her adulthood, Gudrun stayed faithful to her father. In a 1999 interview she talked about trying to save enough money to go to America and examine the evidence that would help her compare her childhood memories with the documents stating her father's views, and the orders he gave. Ultimately, her goal is to write a book called "simply Heinrich Himmler . . . to clear her father's name."

As Bob Dylan sung, Mike, "Now's not the time for your tears."
posted by orthogonality at 10:08 PM on November 20, 2008 [8 favorites]

BTW, I went on record November 5 of this year (well, verbally on record) predicting that we're going to see a lot of neo-cons suddenly kicking the bucket in the next six months.

I think these guys can dish it out but can't take it and I think we're going to see a lot of them simply die from some medical reason or other.

I predict most of the following things will not last till 2010:

- Cheney
- McCain
- the Bush's marriage.
- Bush's sobriety

and at least one wildcard death (I'm hoping for Limbaugh or Lieberman, myself).

There are apparently persistent rumours amongst the members of the press that Bush is in fact already drinking again. Who knows if these are true? Certainly no one's going to print it without overwhelming evidence - and rightfully so - you think consumer confidence is bad now, imagine what that bombshell would do? We've certainly seem almost nothing of Bush recently...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:08 PM on November 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

The Hand of God?
posted by ericb at 10:09 PM on November 20, 2008

The current Deputy AG is Mark Filip (wiki).

Highlights:
He clerked for Scalia.
He was an assistant US Attorney under Clinton.
Bush appointed him a District Court Judge.

Hard to get any read off of his resume, but I imagine with only 2 months to go he'll just continue Mukasey's policies.
posted by Bonzai at 10:09 PM on November 20, 2008

> God forbid that we offend the children of child torturers and apologists for torture by telling the truth.

There's a response to the ideas I said, and there's a response simply restating the emotion. You're simply restating the emotion. You're defending the concept that it's just for people who you believe are villains to experience massive/fatal pain and for the villains' families to lose loved ones because you believe these people are evil and harm the world and others. Yet the villains' villainy is the act of believing that it's just for people they feel are villains to experience massive/fatal pain and for said people's families to lose loved ones because they believe these people are evil and harm the world and others.
posted by WCityMike at 10:13 PM on November 20, 2008

Earth really is much prettier when you're far enough above it that human sized objects don't resolve to the naked eye.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:15 PM on November 20, 2008 [9 favorites]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are the Bleeding Heart Hate Squad and we would like to dedicate this song to MPSDEA.

Its called Spinal Trolliosis Got Me Down.
posted by isopraxis at 10:15 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Of course, Mukasey's stroke is good news for Cheney.

David Addison and Abu Gonzales will have no trouble getting Mukasey to sign anything from his hospital bed.
posted by orthogonality at 10:16 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

WCityMike, people commenting on a website are as responsible for someone's medical problems as government officials are for creating, enacting and defending policies of torture?

A public figure's children reading negative comments about them on a website are as hurtful as someone experiencing torture (sometimes fatally) or as a child knowing their parent is being tortured and held without regard to international laws?

Seriously?

Yes, two wrongs don't a make a right but false equivalences are not helpful in seeing things clearly.
posted by overglow at 10:18 PM on November 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

> As Bob Dylan sung, Mike, "Now's not the time for your tears."

By the way, the one time that the quoted song lyrics state it *is* time for your tears is when Zanzinger gets only a six-month sentence for killing Carroll. It's not the time for tears when he's booked or is let out on bail; it's when justice is not met. The song is not about a relative of Carroll killing Zanzinger on the steps of the courthouse, nor did it have God striking down Zanzinger with a stroke or death. The lyrics describe tears being appropriate when the justice system lets the rich get away with it — when injustice is allowed. Nor, by the way, am I particularly misty-eyed: this isn't causing me any particular personal grief. I'm just saying that plunking down a boom box and starting to boogey around as some here are doing is pretty fucking disgusting.
posted by WCityMike at 10:20 PM on November 20, 2008

WCityMike writes "You're defending the concept that it's just for people who you believe are villains to experience massive/fatal pain and for the villains' families to lose loved ones because you believe these people are evil and harm the world and others. "

Except nowhere did I say that. If you're going to criticize,get your facts straight.

I'm not cheering for Mukasey's suffering. All I've said is that the experience won't make him more compassionate,, and that we shouldn't not condemn evil because it might heart the feelings of the children of evil-doers.

I've suffered some "vascular" incidents of my own, and don't wish that on anyone. Just as I don't want anyone to be tortured, much less in my name as an American.
posted by orthogonality at 10:21 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

> A public figure's children reading negative comments about them on a website are as hurtful as someone experiencing torture (sometimes fatally) or as a child knowing their parent is being tortured and held without regard to international laws? Seriously? Yes, two wrongs don't a make a right but false equivalences are not helpful in seeing things clearly.

I'm not saying the degree is equivalent, I'm saying that those dancing on Snow's grave and Mukasey's hospital bed are guilty of the same underlying principle they use to condemn in Snow/Mukasey. They believe that it's morally acceptable, and just, for someone they feel has done evil to feel massive pain or die. Leaders have committed genocide. A guy who killed his wife would sound rather stupid criticizing said leader from jail. Yeah, one's a few million times greater in magnitude, but the murderer¹'s criticizing the murderer^1,000,000 for the act of murder.
posted by WCityMike at 10:23 PM on November 20, 2008

I feel sympathy for his wife/children, actually, but no more now than I would have a week ago. Living with a father who did and said what Mukasey has said and done and worked for must be pretty horrible, all in itself. The fact he later had a stroke doesn't add or subtract from that for me.

So with subsequent defenses and compassion duly noted, and following careful consideration, I'll stand by my first comment.
posted by rokusan at 10:24 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

You know, I hate it when this happens. Because we see the nasty side of a lot of Mefites.

I know, I know. Metafilter's bleeding heart hate squad are worse than Bush's team of torturers, traitors and terrorists combined. The abject audacity of alliteration itself is absolutely awful, worse than the torture and murder of innocent human beings committed by the United States under this individual's watch. And, frankly, it is despicable that Metafilter's abominable dregs, a pack of ultra-left-wing socialist Muslim Marxists, might dare to even suggest otherwise. Nasty stuff, that. Just nasty.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:25 PM on November 20, 2008 [16 favorites]

Yeah, one's a few million times greater in magnitude, but the murderer's criticizing the murderer for the act of murder.

I don't think anyone here is criticizing Mukasey for making nasty comments on a message board, not even a million times as many nasty comments on a message board.
posted by rokusan at 10:25 PM on November 20, 2008

MPSDEA doesn't realize he's arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:27 PM on November 20, 2008

> WCityMike writes Except nowhere did I say that. If you're going to criticize,get your facts straight.

Fine. But you're the one who said, in response to my suggestion that dancing on Snow's grave and Mukasey's hospital bed is hypocritical, not to mention tacky, that "God forbid" we consider the feelings of their family members. That seemed to be a fairly clear defense of the act of dancing upon graves and hospital beds. If the assumption's incorrect, please feel free to explain the discrepancy.
posted by WCityMike at 10:28 PM on November 20, 2008

lupus_yonderboy: BTW, I went on record November 5 of this year (well, verbally on record) predicting that we're going to see a lot of neo-cons suddenly kicking the bucket in the next six months.

Uh, congratulations on being an asshole?
posted by dhammond at 10:29 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

MPDSEA. I don't know where the DEA comes into play, but I swear to the Golden Bull of Wall Street that I'm not high right now.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:30 PM on November 20, 2008

> Metafilter's bleeding heart hate squad are worse than Bush's team of torturers, traitors and terrorists combined.

Right. Because I said exactly that, right? Straw men aren't useful to debating ideas; they're useful to raising the emotional temperature of a debate, and they reflect more on the people who use them than on their target.
posted by WCityMike at 10:30 PM on November 20, 2008

And now in order to condemn such an evil action, people are deciding that an Administration official experiencing massive (or, in Snow's case, fatal) pain is something that is just, because they label that person as part of an Administration they consider antithetical to the welfare of things good and righteous in this world.

I would have to agree with your characterization of at least my opinion. However, I don't think it's that we're "labelling" these people, nor is it just that they are antithetical to humans; in fact, they have already suceeded in committing terrible crimes, crimes for which they'll never be tried.

We didn't set out to characterize these people as enemies. Instead, they very publicly represented anyone who didn't agree with their criminal agenda as enemies and set out to destroy as many of us as they could.

Let me ask you: would you say this is unjust? Do you really think, "How unfair that this very person was struck down"? Would you say, "God, how could you do this terrible thing to this man?" Would you say, "There are so many other people who would more justly be afflicted this way"? "Unfair, unfair!"?

I think not.

They set up this war on the peoples of the world. At stake are the lives of millions, and our freedoms. They have not behaved politely, nor honourably, they did not respect us or anyone else. They robbed countless trillions from the Treasury. They might have already destroyed this country.

So yes, it is a good thing for all decent humans when one of their generals goes down. Yes, it is justice. Yes, I would wish a similar fate on all the criminals. This doesn't make me happy like a nice piece of music, it makes me happy like, "One tiny step away from the abyss."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:30 PM on November 20, 2008

wcitymike - you forget that many americans simply live for the moments that they can be assholes AND feel righteous about it - it's part of our puritan heritage
posted by pyramid termite at 10:31 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

> I don't think anyone here is criticizing Mukasey for making nasty comments on a message board, not even a million times as many nasty comments on a message board.

No, but (believing fatal/massive pain on those who you believe are villains is just and righteous^Mukasey) and (believing fatal/massive pain on those who you believe are villains is just and righteous^97,234). Same quality, different degree.
posted by WCityMike at 10:32 PM on November 20, 2008

Straw men aren't useful to debating ideas; they're useful to raising the emotional temperature of a debate, and they reflect more on the people who use them than on their target.

In psychiatry, the game you and the other fellow are playing is called projection, in that you are projecting your own strawmen on those you are casting aspersions on, this being an imaginary group of people who happen not to share your worldview. Do not go gently into that good night: rage, rage against the dying of the right.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:37 PM on November 20, 2008

> Let me ask you: would you say this is unjust? Do you really think, "How unfair that this very person was struck down"? Would you say, "God, how could you do this terrible thing to this man?" Would you say, "There are so many other people who would more justly be afflicted this way"? "Unfair, unfair!"?

No. But there's sorrow, there's no emotional reaction, and there's rejoicing. I'm not sorrowing; as I said above, I'm not particularly misty-eyed, although I feel bad for family who lost fathers and husbands. But rejoicing is wrong. This isn't binary (fair-unfair), it's trinary (lamenting-stoic-rejoicing), and I'm saying that rejoicing is hypocritical, because it uses the very same principle the Bushies used to justify their actions, and that principle itself is inherently immoral and wrong.
posted by WCityMike at 10:38 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

WCityMike, we seem to be operating under different assumptions. For instance, I can feel a small bit of joy that these people were struck down by illness because it happened to prevent them from further gleefully contributing to torture and slaughter on a massive scale. Would you condemn someone who expressed joy when someone who kept a kidnapped child chained in his basement had a heart attack? If you wouldn't, do these people get more sympathy because they were further removed from the consequences of their actions, or is it because they had many accomplices, or is it because they did it on a much bigger scale?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:38 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

I guess I wasn't among whoever was calling it "just and righteous" so I have a hard time following your parallel, which seems pretty strained to me.

"I cannot summon sympathy for him" does not equal "I would torture him."
posted by rokusan at 10:39 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

update

"The attorney general is conscious, conversant and alert," Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said after doctors admitted Mukasey to George Washington University Hospital for the night. and it sounds like he regained consciousness before he was taken away from the hotel.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:39 PM on November 20, 2008

I want my enemies to fail, perhaps, but I don't want them to get felled by illness, that's not fair.

I don't know why but this made me laugh. When people think they have "enemies."

It's like who are you? Richard Nixon?

Or maybe you're trying out as a Super Villain for the Guild of Calamitous Intent? Some how I picture lots of maniacal laughing going on.
posted by tkchrist at 10:39 PM on November 20, 2008

> In psychiatry, the game you and the other fellow are playing is called projection, in that you are projecting your own strawmen on those you are casting aspersions on, this being an imaginary group of people who happen not to share your worldview. Do not go gently into that good night: rage, rage against the dying of the right.

Ad hominems, even dressed up as psychiatric observations, don't address the idea either.
posted by WCityMike at 10:39 PM on November 20, 2008

WCityMike writes "But you're the one who said, in response to my suggestion that dancing on Snow's grave and Mukasey's hospital bed is hypocritical, not to mention tacky, that 'God forbid' we consider the feelings of their family members. That seemed to be a fairly clear defense of the act of dancing upon graves and hospital beds. If the assumption's incorrect, please feel free to explain the discrepancy."

Scroll up, you can read what I wrote. You can read it, right?

I wrote "God forbid that we offend the children of child torturers and apologists for torture by telling the truth."
posted by orthogonality at 10:39 PM on November 20, 2008

I wrote "God forbid that we offend the children of child torturers and apologists for torture by telling the truth."

is this one of those puritan things where the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:42 PM on November 20, 2008

As far as I can gather, lupus_yonderboy wouldn't have any particular objection to torturing bad people (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, maybe?), since massive pain and death to such people is only justice.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:43 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I personally prefer the just desserts in the world to be dished out directly, not some random 'he got what he deserved' bullshit. I want people to be accountable and honest and good. I want the system to work, and all of us to work towards that efficiency. Not for all of us to come out of the woodworks when we pass threshold on the secret schadenfreude we feel because something shitty happened to somebody whom we felt deserved it.
posted by iamkimiam at 10:43 PM on November 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

is this one of those puritan things where the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children?

Maybe. Kind of like that thing where illness and misfortune are a sign of God's displeasure.

I don't think even the Puritans were that inspid, though.
posted by Snyder at 10:44 PM on November 20, 2008

> Would you condemn someone who expressed joy when someone who kept a kidnapped child chained in his basement had a heart attack? If you wouldn't, do these people get more sympathy because they were further removed from the consequences of their actions, or is it because they had many accomplices, or is it because they did it on a much bigger scale?

It depends. If the person was at that time keeping the child kidnapped in his basement, then I would experience joy as well, but the underlying principle in such a case is "a child is free and will no longer experience torture and hurt because the individual directly responsible for inflicting said torture and hurt is dead." I do not believe Snow's death or Mukasey's stroke will result in reduction of torture or hurt upon innocents in Guantanemo or Iraq.

If the person was, say, decades older and in jail, and the child had already been recovered, would I actively condemn the person? In a face-to-face context, aloud, perhaps not. I'm speaking here because we exchange ideas and debate here. Would I internally find the rejoicing as distasteful as I found the Snow and Mukasey rejoicings? Yeah.
posted by WCityMike at 10:45 PM on November 20, 2008

I personally prefer the just desserts in the world to be dished out directly, not some random 'he got what he deserved' bullshit. I want people to be accountable and honest and good. I want the system to work, and all of us to work towards that efficiency. Not for all of us to come out of the woodworks when we pass threshold on the secret schadenfreude we feel because something shitty happened to somebody whom we felt deserved it.

Right on. Justice is not random misfortune happening to people. I find it unlikely that lupus or that troll BP would have these same feelings of warmth if the U.S. just happened to torture someone who turned out to be a multiple rapist-murderer. And they be right, because that's not justice.
posted by Snyder at 10:47 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

Uh, congratulations on being an asshole?

My prediction record is good to excellent. Most of the things I predict aren't things I want to see happen. I call 'em as I see 'em.

Familiarity with history is instructive; the phrase "he died a broken man" is not just a figure of speech.

And yes, I wish it would happen.

We need these people out of the way. We are at a critical point in history: the engine of the world has seized up, or perhaps more accurately, its financial heart is fibrillating. Food has suddenly become an issue again, we're one bad harvest in Asia away from massive famines world-wide.

At the same time, much of the US government itself has been torn down behind the scenes by almost 30 years of Cargo Cult/Potemkin Village governance and is dysfunctional.

We're going to have troubles enough cleaning up the problems the madmen caused. Best not to have them around trying to create new problems at the same time. Let them all die of natural causes.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:48 PM on November 20, 2008

Ad hominems, even dressed up as psychiatric observations, don't address the idea either.

Call it what you please, but I'll be plain with you: Your clever "idea" of what you think is wrong about this thread is nonsense, since no one here represents what you are railing against, despite your persistence to the contrary. I'm quite certain you understand this fact, though I understand why you choose not to acknowledge it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:49 PM on November 20, 2008

I don't think even the Puritans were that insipid, though.

that's only because smoke signals were too awkward a medium to conduct webboards upon - that and they couldn't get reliable lattes in salem
posted by pyramid termite at 10:50 PM on November 20, 2008

We need these people out of the way.

And then, there will be no more bad men and everthing will be fine!
posted by Snyder at 10:50 PM on November 20, 2008

As an arch-liberal, I support this stroke.
posted by eparchos at 10:52 PM on November 20, 2008

I allowed myself a bit of shardenfreud at this news, but I'll really rejoice when there aren't 100 other heartless pigs lined up behind him to take his place when he dies.

The loss of this man won't be the death of their aims or their campaigns, sadly.
posted by serazin at 10:52 PM on November 20, 2008

And then, there will be no more bad men and everything will be fine!

hey, maybe we could help a few of them on their way - you know, as a service to humanity, january not coming anywhere near fast enough ...
posted by pyramid termite at 10:53 PM on November 20, 2008

they couldn't get reliable lattes in salem


I doubt they were this pathetically critical of their own perspective, either. Perhaps because, despite all their other flaws, they had a smidge of consistency on their side.
posted by eparchos at 10:54 PM on November 20, 2008

. . . for every time a douchebag has hidden behind the impregnable defense of feeling slighted by an ad hominum attack, heathens cheer for the downfall of someone who sanctioned the actual torture of a human being and encouraged stress positions and enhanced interrogation techniques which proved fatal in many instances on people who turned out to be completely innocent.

Do not go gently into the ever present ad hominum defense to defend against true critical thinking.
Else you paint yourself as a red herring strawman addict to the frailties of projective logical fallacy.
posted by isopraxis at 10:54 PM on November 20, 2008

. . . for every time a douchebag has hidden behind the impregnable defense of feeling slighted by an ad hominum attack, heathens cheer for the downfall of someone who sanctioned the actual torture of a human being and encouraged stress positions and enhanced interrogation techniques which proved fatal in many instances on people who turned out to be completely innocent.

Do not go gently into the ever present ad hominum defense to defend against true critical thinking.
Else you paint yourself as a red herring strawman addict to the frailties of projective logical fallacy.


*ad hominem
*straw man

Please, at least spell check your handy list of logical fallacies.
posted by eparchos at 10:57 PM on November 20, 2008

I doubt they were this pathetically critical of their own perspective, either.

oh, no, whenever it got cold, they just fired up another witch and didn't think twice about it
posted by pyramid termite at 10:57 PM on November 20, 2008

> Call it what you please, but I'll be plain with you: Your clever "idea" of what you think is wrong about this thread is nonsense, since no one here represents what you are railing against, despite your persistence to the contrary. I'm quite certain you understand this fact, though I understand why you choose not to acknowledge it.

We're arguing about the inherent qualities of an action, that action being people's reactions to neocon deaths/strokes. I'm saying it's x, people are saying it's y, I'm pointing out the inconsistencies of that claim and why I believe it to be x, they're responding, and so on.

You're merely saying, "It's obvious as a fact that the reaction is x (asserting the fact), your postulate that the reaction is y is nonsense (ad hominem), and you yourself know that it is really x and I don't know for what purpose you are continuing to make an argument that it is y." All that is is asserting the fact and two ad hominems.

So, so far in this argument, you've straw-manned once, ad hominem'd four times, and asserted the fact.
posted by WCityMike at 10:58 PM on November 20, 2008

Justice is not random misfortune happening to people.

We aren't going to get any other form of justice, though, are we?

Again: are you claiming that this was unjust? That fate unfairly singled this poor man out?

Oh, and Mr Steve etc, you who have advocated torture on these pages before: do you somehow feel that an old man gently keeling over during a speech is torture in the same way that being physically abused in a concentration camp for seven years is?

These people must go. As I said, from the very beginning, I feel that fair trials for war crimes would be the best solution, but I'll certainly take them dropping dead, and cheerfully too.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:59 PM on November 20, 2008

You know, I don't particualrly care if this guy lives or dies, either way, his damage has been done and his role is not unique. The congratulatory backslapping and cries of "Justice!" and hopes for screaming are just pustules.
posted by Snyder at 11:01 PM on November 20, 2008

That fate unfairly singled this poor man out?

Thin on this statement, MeFi, think on it hard. "That fate UNFAIRLY SINGLED this man out?"
Fate. the ultimate arbiter, UNFAIRLY, singled a man out.


Just positing....
posted by eparchos at 11:04 PM on November 20, 2008

We aren't going to get any other form of justice, though, are we?

we could hire an official govenment assassin to shoot someone at random - i'm certain that once in awhile, the target of the day will have done something to deserve it and that's justification enough for me
posted by pyramid termite at 11:05 PM on November 20, 2008

We need these people out of the way.

And then, there will be no more bad men and everthing will be fine!

There will be fewer bad men, and they won't be in positions of power. Your implied alternative, ignore them and perhaps they'll go away, hasn't really been working out so well.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:06 PM on November 20, 2008

So, what I've learned from WCityMike is that Jews who relish hearing about Nazis meeting nasty ends are as bad as Nazis themselves. Glad that's cleared up.
posted by rodgerd at 11:08 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

> Scroll up, you can read what I wrote. You can read it, right?

I wrote "God forbid that we offend the children of child torturers and apologists for torture by telling the truth."

Orthogonality, I wrote, "But Robbie, Kendall and Kristie Snow now have a dead dad, and someday they may bring up a webpage and read comments of liberals dancing on their dad's grave. And Mark and Jessica Mukasey may have a dead or seriously hurt father this evening. And, sorry, that's not something I think is funny, or right, or just."

You quoted that and wrote directly beneath it: "God forbid that we offend the children of child torturers and apologists for torture by telling the truth. [...] [citation of Himmler daughter] [...] 'Now's not the time for your tears.'"

me: "Robbie, Kendall and Kristie Snow [...] may read comments of liberals¹ dancing on their dad's grave"

you, in reply: "God forbid we offend ["the children of child torturers and apologists for torture" = "Robbie, Kendall and Kristie Snow"] by telling the truth"

me: "may read comments of liberals¹ dancing on their dad's grave"

you, in reply: "God forbid we offend by telling the truth"

assertion being made: act of "liberals dancing on their dad's grave" = act of "telling the truth".

Or a defense of the dancing on the graves, which is why I pursued the line of response with you that I did.

¹For those following at home, I am liberal, and that's fairly clear in my comment history, so this isn't a neocon Bushie defending his pet Administration here and saying that torture is peachy-keen Americana.
posted by WCityMike at 11:08 PM on November 20, 2008

And frankly, if you don't understand the narrative, "Man struck down in middle of speech advocating torture," as poetic justice, there's something a little wrong in your soul.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:11 PM on November 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

Mea Culpa.
Sorry to have lead you to think that I was here in a thread about a guy who sanctioned torture and is most likely on his way out to debate the more significant semantics of spelling. I grew up when phonics were in vogue and we learned the sounds before we learned the symbolic shapes. I have a bit of the dyslexia and make mistakes sometimes. Nonetheless, you seemed to understand what I was saying and you chose to take issue with the shape of the words rather than the words themselves. Bravo good man. You've certainly flushed the partridges while you let the snake past.
Bravo to your last eight years.
posted by isopraxis at 11:12 PM on November 20, 2008

Ignore them? What did you do, use your magic powers to give this guy a stroke? This had nothing to do with human agency. That you can see a difference between "Hope something bad happens to the bad people" and "Ignore them" is absurd, and excludes the more rational and just option of, "Attempt to use the criminal justice system for it's intended purpose."

Not to mention your simplistic thoughts that the bad men will somehow be limited to this time, place, and administration?
posted by Snyder at 11:12 PM on November 20, 2008

but what warms my soul is that if russian radar operators should tonight mistake a flock of geese for incoming american missiles, thus starting world war three and the collective melting of our bones in sudden nuclear auto de fe, there will 200 years from now, be a sophomoric wit in new guinea or pago pago or tahiti who will make a nice artistic work with seashells and pointy sticks expressing the belief that somehow, in some mysterious way, JUSTICE was DONE, thereby illustrating the inevitable human compulsion to arrive at a narrative that explains IT, whatever IT might be

goodnight, god bless and WATCH OUT!
posted by pyramid termite at 11:14 PM on November 20, 2008

So, so far in this argument, you've straw-manned once, ad hominem'd four times, and asserted the fact.

I'll say this again as politely and succinctly as possible: Your efforts in falsely projecting your views on the rest of us is offensive, at least to me, and it's not even original. I just don't like being equated with a state-sanctioned torturer (or made out to be worse than one) for the "horrible crime" of daring to feel a sense of justice at said torturer being taken out of the human equation, if only for a little while, before he gets patched up and put back into a position to do more harm. You'll forgive me if I'm offended at the kind of aspersion you and other fellow applied on myself and others.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:15 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

> So, what I've learned from WCityMike is that Jews who relish hearing about Nazis meeting nasty ends are as bad as Nazis themselves. Glad that's cleared up.

To assert this ignores comments made above discussing degree. Also, if Jews : Hitler :: Mefite commenters : Mukasey, are Mefite commenters supposed to be the Jews? The comparison's fundamentally flawed.

> And frankly, if you don't understand the narrative, "Man struck down in middle of speech advocating torture," as poetic justice, there's something a little wrong in your soul.

That's just an ad hominem: I take this position because "there's something a little wrong in [my] soul." It may rack up the faves and make the writer feel good, but doesn't do much to further the position you're taking.
posted by WCityMike at 11:16 PM on November 20, 2008

Your mom has something a little wrong in her soul!
posted by Snyder at 11:17 PM on November 20, 2008

It's like an ad hominem convention in here.
Where'd Rodney get to these days?
WTF he's dead?
I always said I'd be the last one to give him respect.
I guess I was. Good for me.
posted by isopraxis at 11:20 PM on November 20, 2008

Just for curiosity's sake...in a multiverse scenario...what other directions could this thread possibly have gone?
posted by iamkimiam at 11:22 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Cooking with semen?
Already been done.
posted by isopraxis at 11:23 PM on November 20, 2008

Hey, who wants Oysters?
posted by isopraxis at 11:23 PM on November 20, 2008

Wow. I'd love to see a timeline diagram of my last comment. I think I was talking about the irrealis past progressive, but I can't be sure.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:24 PM on November 20, 2008

Just for curiosity's sake...in a multiverse scenario...what other directions could this thread possibly have gone?

Honestly, not many. There's not much to comment on in the post itself.
posted by Snyder at 11:26 PM on November 20, 2008

I get that it's not classy to cheer something like this. But I think it's useful to society to demonstrate that there is a limit to how much we'll overlook for the sake of manners, even in a time like this. You can argue whether Mukaskey's actions have been unethical enough to reach that limit, but there's little doubt that we're overdue for shame to make a comeback.
posted by troybob at 11:27 PM on November 20, 2008

I mean, some snark, some commenting about the circumstance, some talking about Mukasey's legacy. Otherwise, not much. Especially since this was such breaking newsfilter it wasn't clear if he was even dead or alive.
posted by Snyder at 11:27 PM on November 20, 2008

metafilter: bleeding heart hate squad
posted by Football Bat at 11:28 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

That's just an ad hominem: I take this position because "there's something a little wrong in [my] soul."

I'm sorry, I don't believe you are actually taking that position; and I stand by my statement.

"Poetic justice is a literary device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often in modern literature by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct."

"Torture AG Munkasey struck down by stroke during angry speech justifying torture" - how can this not be read as poetic justice?

I think you're actually claiming that "poetic justice isn't really justice". I might dispute that, even, (the folklores of every culture are full of cases of poetic justice being displayed as justice) but I'm not making any consequent claim about your soul.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:29 PM on November 20, 2008

Metafilter: There's something a little wrong in her soul.
posted by Bonzai at 11:31 PM on November 20, 2008

> there is a limit to how much we'll overlook for the sake of manners, even in a time like this

Goes back to the argument about this not being a binary choice, but a trinary one. It's not a choice between rejoicing and lamenting, it's a choice between rejoicing, not reacting, and lamenting.
posted by WCityMike at 11:31 PM on November 20, 2008

Snyder: you're missing the point. If Mukasey had simply choked on a pretzel, no one would be here.

The point was that he gave an angry speech justifying torture and then keeled over. If you saw it in a movie, you'd think it was too convenient.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:34 PM on November 20, 2008 [5 favorites]

Because if anything insipid, lukewarm, or disgusting it is a conscious and calculated non-reaction to the degradation of human feeling for one-another.
posted by isopraxis at 11:36 PM on November 20, 2008

Fuck me are a lot of people going to get brain diseases when this administration is over.

Sadly they might not be as real as this.
posted by Artw at 11:39 PM on November 20, 2008

I dunno about that. I grant a degree of irony in what happend, but I think any excuse for some to dance on a grave will do.
posted by Snyder at 11:40 PM on November 20, 2008

> I'll say this again as politely and succinctly as possible: Your efforts in falsely projecting your views on the rest of us is offensive, at least to me, and it's not even original.

You're stating your emotional response; it's not something I'd know. Sorry you're offended, but it's the Internet, and, moreover, it's Metafilter: you're going to read things that offend you.

I just don't like being equated with a state-sanctioned torturer (or made out to be worse than one) for the "horrible crime" of daring to feel a sense of justice at said torturer being taken out of the human equation, if only for a little while, before he gets patched up and put back into a position to do more harm. You'll forgive me if I'm offended at the kind of aspersion you and other fellow applied on myself and others.

Someone who walks into an argument, says their opinion is fact, and starts casting ad hominem aspersions at those who take a counter position isn't factoring the other side's emotional reaction into their actions. Putting forward a claim based around statements of the emotions of offense and dislike -- after the lines of discussions you've already put forward -- is not one that I can respond to by addressing ideas, and to respond with my own emotional reaction to your offense and dislike wouldn't do much to improve the discussion, either. Again, you've not addressed the idea.
posted by WCityMike at 11:41 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Dancing on a grave.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:42 PM on November 20, 2008

I don't know if I'd call it Poetic Justice, but the actual linguistic poetics of the line "Torture AG Munkasey struck down by stroke during angry speech justifying torture" is quite interesting. The whole "struck down by stroke" is not only a delightful alliteration, but there's a semantic parallelism that reinforces the phonological one. "Struck" and "stroke" belong to the same semantic class of str-words, but what I find doubly interesting is that interchanging the different senses (polysemy) of these words also tends to result in apt and accurate interpretations of the sentence. I also like how the sentence begins and ends with torture, with both senses of the word having similar agency. "AG Munkasey" rhymes too. Oh, and "down by stroke during" is ANOTHER alliteration!

I must say, I do find the sentence justifiably poetic.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:47 PM on November 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

Power of prayer people, it works.
posted by Artw at 11:49 PM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Goes back to the argument about this not being a binary choice, but a trinary one. It's not a choice between rejoicing and lamenting, it's a choice between rejoicing, not reacting, and lamenting.

But all those reactions are useful. That thinking people are rejoicing over this (though that's an overstatement of the reaction so far) serves as a lesson that maybe this guy is not somebody you want to pick as a role model.
posted by troybob at 11:50 PM on November 20, 2008

Again, you've not addressed the idea.

You keep saying that, as if you had put forward a legitimate idea, let alone something original, meaningful and thoughtful. Keep believing that Metafilter is a den of sordid nastiness if it makes you feel better, but in the meantime, please don't lump the majority of us in with torturing and murdering scumbags, just because some of us happen to have come to the rational conclusion that it is a net positive for the human species that one of these scumbags is temporarily out of commission. Thanks very much.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:51 PM on November 20, 2008

Metafilter's bleeding heart hate squad are worse than Bush's team of torturers, traitors and terrorists combined.

So, what I've learned from WCityMike is that Jews who relish hearing about Nazis meeting nasty ends are as bad as Nazis themselves. Glad that's cleared up.

Even assuming that's exactly the position WCityMike holds, and not just a well-stuffed strawman, he's not the first person throw the idea out there that letting hate and anger overtake you in your opposition to even genuine evil puts you on pretty damn slippery moral footing. There's lots of ways to make your very own contribution to a dimmer, more miserable world without having to turn jews into powdered ash or shutting down habeas corpus. Sure, a mean spirit is only a chorus spot, not a lead role, but like they say, there's no small parts, only small actors.

But maybe you don't hold truck with any of that kind of metaphysical or Jesus crap. That's cool, I'd just think that even a rationalist crowd would realize the question of whether or not gleeful schadenfreude is better or worse than waterboarding has zero relevance to whether or not it's a good idea.

no one here represents what you are railing against

"Fuck him."

"a stroke or similar medical incident is far better than this evil man deserves."

If for no other reason than cold political calculation, the class scody demonstrated is just a better way.
posted by namespan at 11:53 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

I prefer a positive net for the human species, thanks very much.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:53 PM on November 20, 2008

When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass
posted by isopraxis at 11:55 PM on November 20, 2008

Remember - with a stroke time lost is guilty secrets lost.
posted by Artw at 11:56 PM on November 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

Why hasn't this thread been deleted yet?
posted by Class Goat at 11:59 PM on November 20, 2008

We're just a bunch of cats playing with it before it dies.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:01 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

He was a single cat playing with it before he died.
posted by isopraxis at 12:05 AM on November 21, 2008

> You keep saying that, as if you had put forward a legitimate idea, let alone something original, meaningful and thoughtful.

"Your idea is not legitimate, original, meaningful or thoughtful." Again, just a collection of ad hominems. I stopped counting.

Keep believing that Metafilter is a den of sordid nastiness if it makes you feel better

And another straw man.

please don't lump the majority of us in with torturing and murdering scumbags

If x is "believing fatal/massive pain on those who you believe are villains is just and righteous," then x to the power of 97,234¹ is not equal to x to the power of two². But it doesn't stop the two results from both being a multiple of x. The two aren't equal, but they are from the same source. And if you believe that x is inherently a bad thing to do, then it's bad whether it's x^97,234 or whether it's x². Yes, one is more bad than the other, in the same way that Hitler^{6,000,000 murdered} is far worse than Joe Wife-Murderer^{1 murdered}, but it'd nonetheless look pretty foolish for Joe Wife-Murderer to criticize Hitler's act of murder and still maintain his own murder of his wife is just. Similarly, the net result of "believing that fatal/massive pain inflicted on those who you believe are villains is righteous" results in a greater evil when applied to 97,234 Iraqi civilians than it is when applied to 1 dead and one evidently now-recovering Washington neocon. But it's an evil either way, whether felt by or towards these creeps.

¹Iraq Civilian Body Count website.
²Snow and Mukasey.
posted by WCityMike at 12:06 AM on November 21, 2008

³hanging of Saddam Hussein.
posted by isopraxis at 12:10 AM on November 21, 2008

I wonder if Cheney will get hit by lightning tomorrow.
posted by bardic at 12:11 AM on November 21, 2008

Mike, I'm now convinced you're even holier than Holy Joe Lieberman.
posted by orthogonality at 12:12 AM on November 21, 2008

From the prepared text, it looks as though he almost made it, and then, just as he was closing (see the penultimate paragraph), he began to skip like a cracked record:

... the national security lawyers in this Administration acted professionally and in good faith and that the country was safer as a result as a result as a result ...

posted by pracowity at 12:15 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

> Mike, I'm now convinced you're even holier than Holy Joe Lieberman.

Ad hominems don't have to be name-calling, they can just be anything that addresses the inherent character of the person taking a position, as opposed to the position itself. So, yeah, that'd be an ad hominem as well.
posted by WCityMike at 12:18 AM on November 21, 2008

Is anyone offering CDSs on schadenfreude?
posted by ryoshu at 12:19 AM on November 21, 2008

What, no buboes or bolts of lightning striking him down?
posted by dunkadunc at 12:26 AM on November 21, 2008

> What, no buboes or bolts of lightning striking him down?

Sometimes it can be unexpectedly fun to learn new words. :-)
posted by WCityMike at 12:29 AM on November 21, 2008

And I am hopeful that some time from now, after the next Administration has had the chance to review the decisions made and the legal advice provided, it will acknowledge that despite any policy differences, the national security lawyers in this Administration acted professionally and in good faith and that the country was safer as a result.

...when his own major intestine, in a desperate bid to save the universe, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:42 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

And on that note, g'night.
posted by WCityMike at 12:46 AM on November 21, 2008

Huh. There are some threads that shouldn't be read before coffee.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:56 AM on November 21, 2008

During a discussion of the death penalty, a friend of mine, a medical examiner, said she opposed the death penalty because death is not a punishment. The dead neither learn from nor suffer the consequences of their misdeeds, because the dead do not learn, or suffer, or feel remorse.

As it is with illness. There may be some poetry to him having a stroke during a speech defending torture, but ultimately, he will learn nothing from it, it will not change him. It is not a punishment, it is not just, any more than it is just or unjust when anyone has a heart attack, or a stroke, or is stricken by debilitating or fatal illness. This was nothing but a coincidence, a bit of bad luck. To ascribe it to some kind of divine justice or God's will insults all the really good people who have harmed nobody and have had similar and worse happen to them. Did they do something to deserve it as well?

I hope that he does make a full recovery and is delivered a real punishment that forces him to face the horror of what he has wrought and what he defends. I wish it fervently. I want him to have it rubbed in his face every day for the rest of his life. I want him to have to look his victims and their families in the eye and experience the pain he has inflicted. I want it written in history books "do not be like this man; he is despicable."

But what happened is not that, at all.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:20 AM on November 21, 2008 [11 favorites]

The day that the US stops using torture and illegally imprisoning people in gulags will be a fine day indeed.

I don't wish ill on anyone, but this guy needs to retire and let someone with a conscience take over.
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:15 AM on November 21, 2008

Arthur: We are not triumphant! All we did was crank-call an old man and-and give him a heart attack.

Tick: Wasn't Plan A, but it did the trick.
posted by ryanrs at 3:20 AM on November 21, 2008

Nice!
posted by gman at 4:13 AM on November 21, 2008

Attorney General Michael Mukasey was giving a speech tonight at the Federalist Society...

Not a single person has mentioned this yet? Aren't these the ultra-right-wing nutjobs? Or am I thinking of the John Birchers?
posted by DU at 4:34 AM on November 21, 2008

You know, there's a difference between a little schadenfreude over something that would happen anyway -- a stroke, cancer -- and *wishing* bad health on someone.

In other words, no one wishes a stroke on anyone else, but when it happens to an asshole who supports heinous torture it's rather hard to give a flying fuck. Did anyone shed a tear for Slobodan Milosevic when he MI'd in prison while on trial for genocide? If you can't speak ill of evil people, who can you speak ill of?

Anyway, from reports he seems to be fine. Probably hopped up on xanax to avoid thinking about the possibility of prosecution, which is (apparently) what he was talking about -- defending administration officials from threats of prosecution for "policy" decisions. And apparently he was especially impassioned about this.

Man do I want to see these m*therf*ckers in the dock at the Hague. Personally, I'd be fine with seeing some of them hung like Saddam was, grainy cell phone video and last minute taunts included. Mukasey's too insignificant to deserve hanging, but hard labor would do fine.

These people tortured people brutally and repeatedly and with forethought. They dropped white phosophor bombs on houses full of children and strafed wedding parties. They've caused more death and destruction than Al Qaeda ever dreamed of doing. Mukasey is no better than Aiman al-Zawahiri, and Bush no better than Osama bin Laden.

Anyone who prays for Mukasey deserves a seat next to him on the bus to hell.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:35 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

DU -- the Federalist society are the legitimate, socially acceptable version of John Birchers, with power.

One of the truly evil forces -- the term "extra-governmental cabal" comes to mind -- with its hand on the scales of justice in this country. And a conduit to judicial and DoJ power for the last 8 years. Smug right wing anti-civil liberties suit and tie thugs is what they are.


Personally, based on my reading, I'd say there's a case for calling the Federalist Society a radical anti-government terrorist-supporting group that has infiltrated the US government at the highest levels.

Here's the ten most wanted list of FS founders and supporters:

Ed Meese
Ted Olson
Robert Bork
Antonin Scalea
John Roberts
Samuel Alito

Assuming Clarence Thomas is also a member, since he's nothing but Scalea's little shadow, that means half our supreme court is controlled by this organization.

Think about that.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:42 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

"[H]as it come to this, that we ... act offended when some people express glee that a man [who defends such things] might [suffer a stroke] ...?"

Yeah, it came to that several millennia ago, when a dude named Paul reminded us that vengeance belongs to God and God alone. Regardless of whether you personally believe in God, the rejection of sadistic glee at our opponents' misfortune has been a hallmark of Western civilization for thousands of years.

Just so you know, your kind are like the anti-fundies. You are the caricature that has made "liberal" a bad word. You are the reason the would-be Christian Left finds the Left repugnant, and the reason it's nearly impossible to win progressive majorities in this country. Thank God that Obama rejects your ideology, and that your kind will find no place in the coming Administration.
posted by jock@law at 5:15 AM on November 21, 2008

> "[T]he Federalist society are ... [o]ne of the truly evil forces ... with its hand on the scales of justice in this country. And a conduit to judicial and DoJ power for the last 8 years. Smug right wing anti-civil liberties suit and tie thugs is what they are. ... I'd say there's a case for calling the Federalist Society a radical anti-government terrorist-supporting group that has infiltrated the US government at the highest levels. ... Assuming Clarence Thomas is also a member, since he's nothing but Scalea's little shadow, that means half our supreme court is controlled by this organization. Think about that."

I'm a FedSoc member and I'm here to tell you that you have no clue what you're talking about.
posted by jock@law at 5:20 AM on November 21, 2008

> Aren't [the Federalist Society] the ultra-right-wing nutjobs?

No. It's an organization for conservative and libertarian-minded law students and lawyers. FedSoc endorses no candidates and has no stance on any particular issues. Mostly, they are responsible for the incredibly sinister act of inviting guest speakers to law school campuses.
posted by jock@law at 5:23 AM on November 21, 2008

Also, the liberal/progressive counterpart to Fed Soc is the American Constitution Society, if anyone cares.
posted by R_Nebblesworth at 5:35 AM on November 21, 2008

FedSoc endorses no candidates and has no stance on any particular issues.

FedSoc website: reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law.

Uh huh. If the current system isn't concerned enough with "traditional values" and the "rule of law" then yes, the FedSoc is rightwing nutjobs.
posted by DU at 5:40 AM on November 21, 2008

No, but (believing fatal/massive pain on those who you believe are villains is just and righteousMukasey) and (believing fatal/massive pain on those who you believe are villains is just and righteous97,234)

This is an exceedingly bad argument.

Mukasey's evil is not that he believes any particular thing. It's that he does things. His problem is not that he believes that pain to villains is okay. His problem is not even that he really does inflict pain on villains. His problem is that he is actively engaged in inflicting pain on people that no reasonable person would consider to be an actual villain, and that he is actually defending people who have tortured innocents, rather than villains, in great numbers against the machinery of justice.

Equating "believing" with "making happen" and "actually defending in the practical sense, not merely verbally defending on an internet message board" is deeply wrong-headed.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:42 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

Just so you know, your kind are like the anti-fundies. You are the caricature that has made "liberal" a bad word. You are the reason the would-be Christian Left finds the Left repugnant, and the reason it's nearly impossible to win progressive majorities in this country.

[batman narrator]
Meanwhile, in real life, the Christian left finds the secular left a welcoming home.
[/batman narrator]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:46 AM on November 21, 2008

Mukasey's evil is not that he believes any particular thing. It's that he does things.

like representing and advising his client, just as charles manson's lawyer worked for him, just as osama bin laden's would work for him

would those lawyers be evil too?
posted by pyramid termite at 6:48 AM on November 21, 2008

Mukasey is guilty of enabling torturers who've collectively shit on the flag of the country I love.

I'm guilty of enjoying a shiver of schadenfreude when Mukasey falls ill.

So be it. I'm not losing any sleep.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 6:55 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Fuck him.
posted by signal at 7:11 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

like representing and advising his client,

You're confusing the Attorney General with the Solicitor General or someone's personal attorney.

Even if the AG had a capacity of actively representing the US in court, it would be as a prosecutor, and he would have a duty to justice above seeking whatever his "client" wants. And in any case, his "client" is not George Bush or some low-level drone who actually tortured someone. His "client" is the United States and its Constitution, and his duty is to shield the constitution and laws of the United States from those who break them, not to try to assist people in breaking them.

You're also confusing someone who represents someone in a criminal trial that is actually taking place, where a defense attorney doing his or her best is an important part of keeping the prosecution and police honest, with someone who is trying to engineer things so that a criminal trial becomes effectively impossible.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:22 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

like representing and advising his client, just as charles manson's lawyer worked for him, just as osama bin laden's would work for him

would those lawyers be evil too?

If the AG's job was to be personal counsel to the torturers, that might make sense.
posted by ryoshu at 7:25 AM on November 21, 2008

like representing and advising his client, just as charles manson's lawyer worked for him, just as osama bin laden's would work for him

Sorry, but this is a false equivalency, and a particularly offensive one. People get lawyers because everyone (everyone) deserves a defense and a fair trial. Manson got a trial, Eichmann got a trial, and yes, bin Laden should get a trial if he's captured (and presumably will under an Obama administration).

Mukasey's (and Gonzales's, and Ashcroft's) evil consists precisely of conspiring to deprive people of that right to due process. So, no, it's nothing like representing Charles Manson in court. It's the exact opposite.
posted by EarBucket at 7:28 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Here's one thought that I haven't seen expressed in all this brouhaha:

Part of the joy, however ill-advised it may be, that some of us feel upon news of this may be because some part of us truly knows that these fuckers will never get the punishment they deserve.

Yes. In any good and just universe they'd all be brought before the world court, given a public trial according to the most modern, liberal values the we like to espouse, found guilty of hideous, unpardonable crimes if they are so, and publicly humiliated, excoriated, punished, and a good many of them perhaps put to death for massive crimes against humanity.

I want to see it happen. I do not want to see those who have so violated all that my country should stand for get away with executive pardons and weak-willed successors who don't wish to stir the pot (and limit their own potential power!) by seeing that they get the punishment due.

I want to see it happen. I will do my best to help make it happen... but deep down, I fear, and with a good degree of certainty, I know that these bastards will never be fairly tried and punished for their crimes. And that sickens and dismays me.

So forgive me a moment of my own indiscretion if I feel ever so slightly a moment of "good riddance to bad rubbish" schadenfreude because I know it's as close to justice for these abominable assholes as we're likely to see.

I think you know it, too.
posted by jammer at 7:38 AM on November 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

you know who else had strokes and was Hitler...
posted by Artw at 7:44 AM on November 21, 2008

Even if the AG had a capacity of actively representing the US in court

he does and has

His "client" is the United States and its Constitution, and his duty is to shield the constitution and laws of the United States from those who break them, not to try to assist people in breaking them.

according to whose interpretation? yours?

-------------

Sorry, but this is a false equivalency, and a particularly offensive one. People get lawyers because everyone (everyone) deserves a defense and a fair trial.

they also get lawyers because they need legal advice - it's not a false equivalency to point that out - in fact, it's a basic pillar of our legal system and you are arguing against it

53 senators voted for him to be a g while 7 didn't vote - am i to assume that these 60 senators are also evil and should suffer debilitating strokes for the crime of giving an administration a legal representative? hey, what about all the people who voted for those senators and that president?

hmmm - how many strechers and shovels do we have in this country anyway?

bottom line - there are a lot of shrill, shallow robespierre wannabes in this thread - it's kind of embarrassing that people don't realize that much of the schadenfreude people are feeling is centered upon THEM, not mukasey

for everyone of you, there's one on the other side wishing death and debilitation upon those you support and admire

makes you feel all warm inside, doesn't it?

but i'm a little tired of arguing for such outre ideas as human decency and compassion and the role of legal representation in a civilized society, so i'll let you all continue to chew on your moral alphabet blocks with the hope that you're through teething soon
posted by pyramid termite at 7:59 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

FedSoc endorses no candidates and has no stance on any particular issues.

Isn't that how Fox News describes itself as well? Doesn't everybody know better?
posted by grouse at 8:10 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Mukasey just had a touch of the vapors.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:48 AM on November 21, 2008

but i'm a little tired of arguing for such outre ideas as human decency and compassion and the role of legal representation in a civilized society...

I get the human decency angle (though I don't think it is relevant here), but I don't get what this has to do with legal representation. Mukasey was not arguing his client's position in court when this happened; he was defending his own position.

Manson's lawyers deserve a pass for defending their client in court, because it is their job, but were they out there independently and voluntarily making speeches defending the act of ripping fetuses from Hollywood actresses, criticism of them would not be unjustified.
posted by troybob at 9:00 AM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Oh my god. Oh my god. That a-hole just ... fainted.
posted by raysmj at 9:36 AM on November 21, 2008

Did someone come out and put a cape on him? And then he shakes his head ‘no’ and throws the cape off and rejuvinates and gets back to speechifyin’?

‘Cause that would have been cool.


(What? I’m not going to dance on his grave, or say there’s anything funny about this guy having a stroke per se, but having an apoplectic stroke during a hyperbolic speech supporting torture is pretty funny. That could be Mukasey, could be anybody. No glee at his misfortune, just the irony of the circumstances. The humor there isn’t personal. Just a human reaction.)

(That said - I’d like to see him pay for his crimes, this is not the way he should pay for them. I agree that hopefully the compassion he recieves in health care makes him reevaluate his beliefs. And I take issue with the idea he ‘deserves’ a stroke like it justifies their world view. That’s offensive. The self-satisfaction. The ‘ownership’ of that mean spiritedness and joy in someone’s suffering. I mean, if you want him dead pick up a weapon and kill the bastard. Or put your own boot in his winkies. Or gather evidence, hunt him down and prosecute him. Give money to those who do. Justice is made by men not by nature or God. And hate anywhere is a threat to reason and justice everywhere.
That said - humor is a universal human constant. One can be funny without being hateful.
I mean, I like Obama but if he got shot while demolishing someone’s red corvette with a crowbar shouting about “this is what happens when you fuck the president-elect in the ass”, I’d think it was pretty goofy and probably quip about it even as I lamented him getting shot.)
posted by Smedleyman at 10:35 AM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

(fainting is even funnier)
posted by Smedleyman at 10:36 AM on November 21, 2008

He only fainted (read above, and the "vapors" thing from Wonkette--it's not a joke), so the James Brown "Please Please Please" showstopper comparison is all the the more apt.
posted by raysmj at 10:37 AM on November 21, 2008

I'm a FedSoc member and I'm here to tell you that you have no clue what you're talking about.

Right. That means you're a lawyer, and know the meaning of the phrase "conflict of interest."

I stand by every single word I wrote.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:09 AM on November 21, 2008

Or a law student. Which makes you even funnier.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:12 AM on November 21, 2008

Right. That means you're a lawyer, and know the meaning of the phrase "conflict of interest."

I stand by every single word I wrote.

Please explain this supposed conflict of interest.
posted by gyc at 11:31 AM on November 21, 2008

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the BNP?
posted by Artw at 11:34 AM on November 21, 2008

I would like to see the reading that says FedSoc is an anti-government terrorist-supporting secret cabal that "controls" half of SCOTUS.
posted by R_Nebblesworth at 12:09 PM on November 21, 2008

R_Nebblesworth > I would like to see the reading that says FedSoc is an anti-government terrorist-supporting secret cabal that "controls" half of SCOTUS.

Me too. I swear, sometimes the rabidly insane ultraleftism on MeFi is astounding.

fourcheesemac > That means you ... know the meaning of the phrase "conflict of interest."

Yeah. I do. Do you? Because your comment makes no sense in context.*

DU > If the current system isn't concerned enough with "traditional values" and the "rule of law" then yes, the FedSoc[, which promotes increasing those things,] is rightwing nutjobs.

Oh, okay. Well, as someone who doesn't think the rule of law or traditional values of independence and personal responsibility are very well tended to in the current judiciary, I guess that makes me a rightwing nutjob. Who voted for Obama. And supports anti-discrimination legislation for gay and bisexual workers.

Odd definition of rightwing nutjob you have there. I guess Cass Sunstein and all of the other liberal proponents of judicial minimalism are rightwing nutjobs too.

* Unless your argument is that my opinion about FedSoc is invalid since I'm a member, which is plainly fallacious (and also misunderstands what "conflict of interest" means). Not only is it a classic case of poisoning the well, but it presupposes that membership causes opinion, rather than opinion leading to membership. Since FedSoc membership is entirely voluntary, that presupposition is, to say the least, doubtful; there's no reason to think I'd have joined in the first place if, before being a member, I hadn't found the organization worthwhile.
posted by jock@law at 1:16 PM on November 21, 2008

Yeah, I'm a rabid lefty.

And I bet you can count FedSoc members who supported Obama on one hand. A very large number of FedSoc members individually endorsed or supported McCain.

MotherJones: Bush's Shadow Justice Dept: Did the Federalist Society Have a Hand in Attorney Firings?

PAW Right Wing Watch: Federalist Society Downplays Its Power

Washington Post: Conservative Federalist Society Expects Its Status to Shrink

(where we learn . . . "46 percent of Bush's appointments have ties to the Federalist Society.
At one of the group's events last month, Bush bragged that he has appointed more than a third of the federal judiciary that will be in place when he leaves office. While he has appointed slightly fewer appeals court judges than Clinton -- 61 to 65 -- Bush's mostly young appointees will soon make up nearly two-thirds of the judges at that level, and Republican-appointed judges are in the majority on 10 of the 13 circuits."

I'll stand by my opinion. The FedSoc has enabled the crimes of the Bush Justice Department (what I mean by "terrorism," as in committing torture), been a key conduit for the promotion of right wing judicial appointments, and has an unprecedented relationship to the SCOTUS.

The rabid response to my comment only tells me I've hit a nerve with a truth drill.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:20 PM on November 21, 2008

PS -- just because you support Obama, if you do, doesn't mean squat to me.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:20 PM on November 21, 2008

One more, drom dKospedia. The term "cabal" was not my invention, ut :


According to one writer at Salon, "In 1982, Edwin Meese, Rehnquist and other first-generation legal conservatives reached out to law students and encouraged the founding of a new organization: the Federalist Society. Funded generously by Richard Mellon Scaife and patrons, the Federalist Society became a national networking organization that nurtured young conservatives and swiftly became the crucial channel to Supreme Court clerkships and prestigious jobs in the Reagan administration. In 'Closed Chambers,' former clerk Lazarus outlines how Federalist Society clerks formed a self-described "cabal against the libs" to push justices in a rightward direction. Conservative donors like Scaife were encouraged to endow professorships and to fund conferences and training institutes to tutor judges in corporate deregulation and other articles of conservative legal faith." Article Real Americans have to ask themselves the same thing they ask about the neo-conservatives who dragged the USA into an unnecessary and unwinnable war in Iraq, at what point does such an elite conspiracy become un-American? In the case of Federalist Society, when does conservative ideological subversion of judicial neutrality rise to the level of treason?

You're going to try to convince me Richard Mellon Scaife funded a non-partisan group devoted to protecting "liberty?" Yeah, right.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:23 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is good. Monica Goodling (whom I can only think of as "Monica Quisling") kept track of which US Attorneys were members of the FedSoc. Funny, but those were the ones who weren't fired for failing to selectively prosecute democratic candidates for election "fraud."
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:37 PM on November 21, 2008

Michael Mukasey didn't deserve a stroke.

And he didn't have one.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey Receives 'Clean Bill of Health' After Thursday Collapse.
posted by ericb at 2:44 PM on November 21, 2008

Oh, okay. Well, as someone who doesn't think the rule of law or traditional values of independence and personal responsibility are very well tended to in the current judiciary, I guess that makes me a rightwing nutjob. Who voted for Obama. And supports anti-discrimination legislation for gay and bisexual workers.

Given that states like California, Arkansas, Florida and others have voted in the last eight years to chip away at equal protection for GLBT, enabling such legislation on a widespread (say, federal) level would violate the integrity of the Constitution, by not allowing states to go their own way and do their own thing, even if it is morally abhorrent.

Your position, therefore, is an exception to the general direction that Federalists would take, in that they, on the whole, would not support anti-discrimination legislation for GLBT. Given Obama's on-paper support for federally-protected GLBT rights, by proxy, therefore, your personal support for Obama also counters the general political agenda that Federalists have pursued through their allies in the Bush administration. Many Federalists worked and continue to work to maintain and increase the power and influence of the GOP, and in turn, affect their own.

Certainly there is room in any organization for dissent and disagreement, and your (obviously) heartfelt and thoughtful divergence from Federalist ideology is admirable to me, especially given that my partner and I would benefit from the legal protections already afforded straight Americans. I am grateful that you believe in doing the right thing on this matter, and I wouldn't wish to dissuade you from this position.

But, with respect, given how much of a detour you have taken from publicly-espoused Federalist ideals, it might make one wonder how much you can rightfully claim about what this organization really represents, as opposed to the reactionary, conservative reality already understood by many to be the case.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:53 PM on November 21, 2008

Yes, FedSoc is a conservative/libertarian organization. Yes, many Republican-appointed judges were members. So?

You have yet to show that a single one of those judges -- none of whom I bet you could name off the top of your head aside from Roberts and Alito -- was a "right-wing nutjob," let alone that they're part of a conspiracy of right-wing nutjobs, let alone that FedSoc is that conspiracy.

You're being ridiculous and lowering the level of discourse on MeFi. You're not in legal academia and have no experience in the judiciary. You've never been to a FedSoc meeting or event, which, contrary to your conspiracy-theory ultraliberalism, are not some mysterious secret cabal, but are generally open to the public. You are arguing vehemently over something you know absolutely, utterly, and emphatically nothing about.

Have a seat, would you please Mr. Fourcheesemac.
posted by jock@law at 2:55 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I don't wish ill on anyone, but this guy needs to retire and let someone with a conscience take over.

He's already on his way out. President-elect Obama is filling the post with Eric Holder.
posted by ericb at 3:02 PM on November 21, 2008

Blazecock, my judicial philosophy is, in a word, textualist, and my political leanings tend to be free-market (I hate the word libertarian). I think legislation should only exist to correct the political equivalent of a market failure. All of these things are highly "Federalist." (As a side note, I never publicly espoused any particularly Federalist ideals until now, I just said I was a member).

The correlation between Republicans and FedSoc members is just that -- a correlation. There is significant overlap. I would say a majority of FedSoc members are Republicans. But that's not universally true. Many are independents. Some are even Democrats.

It is my opinion that a textualist interpretation of the fourteenth amendment would support legislation prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations toward people belonging to classes toward which there is a history of invidious discrimination. That's what "equal protection of the laws" means.

If you'll recall, it was Justice O'Connor, a proponent of the Federalism movement, who focused on the equal protection clause in her concurrence in Lawrence. (The more "liberal" justices focused on the weaker argument of a fundamental right to privacy.) So if my reading of the EPC takes me on a "detour" from what you view as "Federalist ideals," then I'm not the only one.
posted by jock@law at 3:09 PM on November 21, 2008

What the Federalist Society Stands For

“Launched 23 years ago by a group of conservative students who felt embattled by liberals on the campuses of some of the nation's most elite law schools, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies has grown into one of the nation's most influential legal organizations. The group claims more than 35,000 members, an increasing number of whom work in the highest councils of the federal government. Many Justice Department lawyers, White House attorneys, Supreme Court clerks and judges are affiliated with the group. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was a close adviser to the organization while he was a University of Chicago law professor.

Not only has the Federalist Society become a source of legal talent for Republican administrations, but through its frequent on-campus seminars and forums for practicing lawyers, the group is also credited with popularizing methods of legal analysis now widely advocated by many conservatives and employed by an increasing number of judges. Theories such as originalism, which holds that the Constitution has a fixed and knowable meaning rather than an evolving meaning that should adapt to contemporary times, is an idea put forward by many Federalist members. Using that standard, some judges have challenged previous court rulings allowing broad federal control over states on regulatory and civil rights issues, and maintaining the legal wall separating church and state.

The growing influence of the Federalist Society has coincided with the rise of a network of conservative research organizations and public interest law firms that together have challenged hot-button issues such as affirmative action and prohibitions against publicly funded school vouchers.

…Through the years, the Federalist Society, which has a $5 million budget, has also received substantial financial backing from a network of foundations that has supported a diverse menu of conservative causes, including promoting school vouchers and investigating the personal life of former president Bill Clinton. These include the John M. Olin and Charles G. Koch foundations. Conservative activist Richard Mellon Scaife is also a major benefactor.”

posted by ericb at 3:24 PM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

I guess that makes me a rightwing nutjob. Who voted for Obama. And supports anti-discrimination legislation for gay and bisexual workers.

"...for gay and bisexual workers."

jock@law -- I'm personally curious. Where do you stand on the issue of same-sex marriage?
posted by ericb at 3:27 PM on November 21, 2008

My position is that there's nothing in the Constitution whatsoever that mandates gay marriage. The EPC gives individuals the same protections as other individuals, not groups of individuals the same protections as other groups of individuals. That said, the decision in Loving is probably going to be extended some time in the future.

In terms of my political leanings, I support it. I think the proliferation of "marriage lite" hurts traditional marriage more than gay marriage would. Employers offer domestic partner benefits now, which means that a straight couple can just go get joint health insurance, etc., instead of entering into a traditional marriage. There is a lot of demand for same-sex marriages, and as long as the supply is artificially limited, near-fungible alternatives will come to market, alternatives which are cheaper and easier to obtain, and the value of marriage will decline.

Let's put it this way. If I were hearing arguments about a hypothetical Federal version of Prop 8, I would uphold the amendment. But I'd be more than willing to donate to their campaign when they try to get it repealed.
posted by jock@law at 3:48 PM on November 21, 2008

If I were hearing arguments about a hypothetical Federal version of Prop 8, I would uphold the amendment. But I'd be more than willing to donate to their campaign when they try to get it repealed.

With respect, I read this and have trouble comprehending the dissonant thinking process that maintains that the letter of the law must be strictly upheld even when its proponent knows that the law is hurting other people. I guess I come from the view that law, like any of our other inventions, should serve mankind, and not the other way around, even though I should know better by now.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:27 PM on November 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

These aren't gentlemen with whom we have a minor disagreement in principle. This man is part of a cabal who seized the government, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in foreign wars, looted the Treasury, and systematically destroyed the rule of law.

I'm with lupus_yonderboy here. I'm not saying I'd directly wish ill on Mukasey or his ilk (maybe in a generalized sense, sure, but not "oh boy! I wish he'd have a stroke! like, now!") but there's a. a whole lot of poetic justice in getting stricken while defending your own horrific policies to a group of neocon nutjobs.

The problem is, as jammer expressed:

Part of the joy, however ill-advised it may be, that some of us feel upon news of this may be because some part of us truly knows that these fuckers will never get the punishment they deserve.

They're NOT. Hell, we can't even strip Joe Lieberman of a lousy committee chairmanship or two for being a total dick, let alone follow through with seeing Bush, Cheney, Mukasey and everyone else brought to justice. These people have systematically looted the country, sold our our economy, abused our rights explicit and implied in EVERY possible way and still -- what? we're supposed to be all neutral about it? Fuck that. I'm not neutral on this at all, and I can't think of many people who are.

I think the proliferation of "marriage lite" hurts traditional marriage more than gay marriage would. Employers offer domestic partner benefits now, which means that a straight couple can just go get joint health insurance, etc., instead of entering into a traditional marriage.

As for domestic partnership and other exciting things the Bush-allied religious right has managed to fuck up: my boyfriend now works somewhere with domestic partner coverage, which allows me to follow a small business/entrepreneurial path that would be a hell of a lot tougher to do without those (very welcome, actually affordable) benefits. You know. The small business up-by-the-bootstraps thing we supposedly idolize in this country. The American Dream. La la la. Never mind that the anti-same-sex marriage legislation passed in our state has actually made it more difficult (if not impossible) to prosecute domestic abuse cases, etc -- NICE SIDE EFFECT, JERKS.

So long as these people are in power, no one's safe unless they own an oil company or have an awful lot of money or nude photos from the research phase of Lynn Cheney's novel locked away somewhere.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:32 PM on November 21, 2008

bitter-girl.com, which state are you in?

Do you have any links re: domestic abuse cases? I'd be very interested to read anything you got on em.

Thanks
posted by jock@law at 4:35 PM on November 21, 2008

> With respect, I read this and have trouble comprehending the dissonant thinking process that maintains that the letter of the law must be strictly upheld even when its proponent knows that the law is hurting other people.

jock@law Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting this.

blazecock: jock does mention that he's a Textualist. From the article:

Textualism ... holds that a statute's ordinary meaning should govern its interpretation, as opposed to inquiries into non-textual sources such as the intention of the legislature in passing the law ...

Further reading convinces me that Textualism is not an unreasonable point of view.
posted by simoncion at 4:47 PM on November 21, 2008

Ohio. Here's a few links: one, two, three, four, five.

This was, last I looked into it, on its way to a number of challenges -- not sure if it ever got to the state supreme court or not -- immediately after Issue One (the anti-same-sex marriage initiative) was passed, various defense attorneys tried to use it as a means of getting their clients a lesser charge or getting a case thrown out. It was a very unintended side effect that made the original, hateful legislation just seem like a poke in the eye to domestic abuse victims, too. Salt, meet wound.

Listen, the only valid reason for being against same-sex marriage that I can think of that doesn't involve HEY! JESUS SAID! is insurance access. The insurance companies don't want to cover any more people than they absolutely have to. Pass universal coverage and you eliminate that argument immediately. At that point, what's the argument? Last I heard (and I used to work for a trial lawyer), HEY! JESUS SAID! doesn't hold up as a legal argument to deny someone equal rights.

You can argue all day long that there are marriage equivalents available, but they are not universal, and they do not guarantee the same things. I can walk in to my doctor's office for a flu shot, as I did today, with my health card stamped with my boyfriend's name, no problem. But barring a set of legal documents that may or may not be honored, if I was in a horrifying accident tomorrow, they'd ask my parents about pulling the plug, not him. I'm not a minor. My parents, I love 'em, but I don't think I could trust my mother to do what I'd want (pull it, Ma...pull it). Yet the person I trust more than anyone, the one I get my health coverage through, even, can't make that decision I would trust him to make. And that's just wrong.

Back to Mukasey for a sec. In my example there I'm concerned about how the law affects me, yes? But my wider concern is that Mukasey and his thugs don't have the sense God gave a goldfish, as proved by their actions on torture, etc. This is why I don't respect their decisionmaking ability, and this is why I am feeling immense schadenfreude here. Emphasis on the freude.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:55 PM on November 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

The insurance companies don't want to cover any more people than they absolutely have to.

A bit of a tangent here, but this is at the very least far too blunt of a statement. Covered lives = revenue, and you can be sure that any ambitious insurance company wants in general to cover as many people for whom they can establish acceptable risk as they can manage. More covered lives means more (actuary-approved!) premiums. That's life blood, right there.

There is unquestionably a whole lot of nuance when you drill down—and I'd love it if someone who knows the industry better than I do could hash this out some time—but don't mistake the insurance industry's conservatism toward risk with a hostility toward covered lives. They want as many as they can get, even if they're slow to adapt to change.

The employers paying for group insurance—particularly those who subsidize in whole or in part spousal benefits—may have an incentive to oppose an expanded business/legal definition of "spouse", of course.
posted by cortex at 5:13 PM on November 21, 2008

bitter-girl.com:
They tried that argument in Ohio, yeah. The Ohio Supreme Court knocked that argument pretty much on its butt:

"Persons who [are in a domestic relationship for purposes of the domestic violence statute] are not provided any of the rights, benefits, or duties of marriage. [It] is simply a classification with significance to only domestic-violence statutes. Thus, [the domestic violence statute] is not unconstitutional and does not create a quasi-marital relationship in violation of [the gay marriage amendment] of the Ohio Constitution." State v. Carswell, 114 Ohio St. 3d 210, 216 871 N.E.2d 547, 554 (2007).

posted by jock@law at 5:26 PM on November 21, 2008

I see where you're coming from, cortex, but think about it this way: yes, more covered lives = more revenue, but it also = many more 'uninsurable' people that might not necessarily be able to get their own coverage under current underwriting guidelines.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but (just to make this an easy comparison covered under current law) if I do not have access to insurance of my own from an employer, and my husband (hey honey! you've been upgraded!) puts me on his work's insurance, they can't turn me down, right? I'm a spouse now, and entitled to coverage under the 'family' policy. Even if I have cancer, or HIV, or any of the other things people regularly are denied coverage for, they have to take me, right?

But let's say I'm in a relationship with another woman instead and we decide to go for the in vitro. Or we already had the in vitro before the current job, but the sperm donor gave our kid severe autism (wow! yet another fascinating article I read while getting my hair cut today) and he needs a ton of special treatment for various problems. I'm guessing that the potential additions to the overall pool may have, from an underwriter's point of view, potential higher costs vs. the money they'd be contributing overall, or else it'd be hella easier to get companies to offer domestic partner coverage.

(My boyfriend works for a large financial company. He used to work for a 'creative' corporation. Guess which one offers coverage for all domestic partners and which only gives it to same-sex partners? You would be surprised).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:35 PM on November 21, 2008

Yee-haw, jock@law -- that's good news for sure! The fact that it was even used as an argument at all to get domestic abusers off is still pretty depressing, though.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:36 PM on November 21, 2008

Even if I have cancer, or HIV, or any of the other things people regularly are denied coverage for, they have to take me, right?

Again, I don't think that's really the general case. There are definitely aspects to group insurance that makes it less road-bumpy for both covered employees and their spouses and dependents to get approved for (base) coverage than with e.g. individual insurance products, but it's not a blank check free from the oversight of underwriting to my understanding. A pre-existing condition is a pre-existing condition, etc, and nobody gets coverage without providing at least a medical history statement replete with scary disclaimers about insurance fraud.

I've got zero practical personal experience with underwriting procedure—wasn't my department, and I only studied the basics ad hoc a while back—so I may be miffing something badly here (again, I'd love, as perverse as it is to hear these words coming out of my mount, to hear someone more versed in that domain hold forth), but the real concern would be dealing with a new group of covered lives for whom there was no sufficiently trustworthy actuarial data. Risk that can't be evaluated = bad; risk that can be reasonably evaluated and either rejected or assigned an appropriate (and possibly elevated) premium rate = revenue = yay.

And there may be an element of gay = statistical model suggesting gay-related risk = perceived actual risk = risk that can't be mitigated by premium adjustments due to regulations barring discriminatory practices = bad; I'd be curious to what extent that sort of thinking is (or is still?) a significant factor in the process. But again I'd be surprised if that were a big player here.
posted by cortex at 5:59 PM on November 21, 2008

bitter-girl.com: I'd bet that the company with the most money to throw at the problem provides the most inclusive coverage. Am I wrong?
posted by simoncion at 6:14 PM on November 21, 2008

Same number of employees, simoncion (within a few hundred, according to Wikipedia), and the one providing the coverage has more revenue, but the smaller of the two is by no means *small*. I found it somewhat weird that the "creative" company would offer benefits to some domestic partners but not all...in other words, same sex couples were ok but straight ones were not. I thought the big bad Corporate-with-a-capital-C would be the one with more limits!

cortex, even as a domestic partner I was not asked about my medical history before they added me -- I'd be curious to know if spouses generally are, or if it's just a "hey, it's that time of year to change your coverage, add this or that" form like we had.

But back to the argument portion here -- if you can argue that (in general) insurance companies should generally want to add people on in order to capture their premiums if the risk level is acceptable, then what other sort of financial arguments can be made against domestic partnerships, same sex marriages, etc? If there's no financial reason against it, and the only argument is social

(I should probably say "religiously-based" and not social, since increasing the number of married people doesn't dilute the shareholder value of everyone else holding a marriage certificate),

then what? Where's the argument against it that holds water? You can patch together a bunch of forms which hopefully will hold up in time of crisis, or you can institute a civil ceremony akin to what they do in Europe with or without a church service, and guarantee that partners will have the right to carry our their intentions, legally, medically or otherwise.

But by holding to textualism, strict constructionism, whatever you want to call it, we're leaving out the reality of modern day society. When I read the words "all men are created equal," I am necessarily reading into it that women are included, too. That's textualism in a nutshell, right? I'm not parsing the fact that the word "men" is used and assuming that it includes only men because it says 'men,' I'm reading that as a generally acceptable shortened form of "humankind" based on the rest of the entire text as a whole. Going forward, we are created equal and endowed with our various rights, correct? So since when are we allowed to exclude rights from an entire class of people because they are not considered to be part of that whole?

(I am so undercaffeinated right now it's not funny, but am I getting the general argument right here? and if not, why not? How can one argue that same sex couples are not entitled to the same rights as other couples? There's no secret *except the gays footnote in there somewhere, is there?)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 6:42 PM on November 21, 2008