Halperin on Souter replacement:
White Men Need Not Apply
So hard to be a white man in a white man’s world. I’m not sure how I make it sometimes, personally.
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[…] Dear Mr Halperin May 1, 2009 Posted by Evil Bender in News and politics, bigotry. trackback Kindly go fuck yourself. […]
cleek
Halperin’s a choad.
Kris
Who knew? I honestly thought that you were a negro just like me DougJ.
valdivia
I refuse to give that nitwit any clicks.
dmsilev
Halperin is just peeved that he’s not on any of the short lists.
-dms
beltane
I have long despaired over the stunning lack of white men in positions of power. Out of nine Supreme Court justices, for example, only seven are white men. Alas and alack.
TheFountainHead
Exactly, the Supreme Bench has long since surpassed it’s White Men quota…
Anton Sirius
What, we’re already down to six of eight Supreme Court justices being males of European descent… a mere 2/3rds would be unthinkable.
someguy
Halperin’s right in a way. The Court should look like America and any move in that direction is good. Of course it’d be fat, short of teeth, xenophobic, violent, and would have the annoying habit of interrupting oral argument when Doctor Phil comes on. But on the whole that would be more representative than the right wing elite-ocracy now occupying the place. And yes, even the so-called liberals on the court are extremely conservative compared to just about any one of us, never mind the hard core right wing, white* conservative Catholic majority that runs the show.
*Yes, Clarence Thomas is white. Unless you ask a Republican.
Ricky Bobby
Amazing to see this latent underlying racism start to bubble to the surface just after the first minority POTUS is elected.
I am shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!
Bulworth
I assumed your post title was one of those “shorter” paraphrases. But alas…
It’s true, of course, that white men have been grossly misunderrepresented in the history of the SCOTUS.
rob
You are white??? thought you were a Brotha. This appointment needs to be an AA woman. Just my .02 cents.
Hunter Gathers
I don’t know about the rest of you, but as as a member of the oppressed white male majority, I will pitch a fit if Obama doesn’t choose David Duke. Or the ghost of Lee Atwater.
The Grand Panjandrum
I’m feeling you my brother of the same color. How DO we survive? Oh it’s hard out here for us white men. Who ARE all these people that want to compete for OUR birthright?
Boo fucking hoo.
Hunter Gathers
You know what would be really awesome?
Supreme Court Justice Patrick J. Buchanan.
MikeJ
When I mentioned this in an earlier thread, I mis-attributed it to Tapper. Tapper, Halperin, they all look alike.
Keith
OK, throw Halperin a bone and toss Glenn Greenwald’s name in there. (I have a desire to see how many conservative pundits are at risk for heart attack/stroke)
JK
Mark Halperin is paralyzed above the neck and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are taking turns operating his brain by remote control.
Mike in NC
I’ve been keeping myself down for so long now, it looks like up to me.
Kris
@rob:
Exactly my thoughts. Maybe it’s the way DougJ writes that he sounds like one of us?
Pangloss
That’s funny, I put that same line in my online dating profiles.
AkaDad
I think all of us BJ’ers should join together and start a charity for the white man.
DougJ
I guess I’m the Bobby Caldwell/Michael McDonald of bloggers.
JM
THAT’S what’s important to him?
Insecurity is so pathetic.
TheFountainHead
I think Obama should nominate Sully for the spot. That would really leave the GOP reeling…
kay
I maintain that no nominee will ever equal the insane, over the top hero worship we saw on the right when Roberts was nominated.
He’s the smartest, bestest lawyer in the history of the world.
He achieved that distinction prior to his first day on the Court, because conservatives said so. I’ve never seen anything like it.
4tehlulz
@cleek: Don’t insult choads like that.
GregB
It is funny that all of the tools who have for decades now bitched about what they see as liberal/left wing whining over political correctness, the same rightwingjagoffs who advocate less thin skinnedness, more sense of humor and a get over it attitude for racial slights are now doing overtime at getting huffy, humorless and offended at the slightest mention of their race.
Oh it is funny.
-G
And Halperin is a choad and a half.
Krista
More like the Rick Astley of bloggers. ;) Dude is whiter than white, but sounds like Billy Ocean. As well, he has become legendary among the interwebs, and is often disguised as something else.
JM
I have a better idea!
We could update the old “crying Indian commercial” in order to highlight the plight of the white man.
Have some craggy-faced conservative guy in a suit wandering around the USA, seeing happy gay couples, biology classes teaching biology, wandering across high-speed rail rails in a daze, and wandering up to where a black man is giving a speech as president.
CLOSE ON white man’s FACE as a single TEAR rolls down his CHEEK.
— FADE OUT
canuckistani
I’d like to see Mumia Abu-Jamal nominated, just so I could hear the sound of 60 million bowels opening at once.
Zifnab
Reverse Racism! Reverse Racism! We all knew this would happen!
Kirk Spencer
I actually followed through to read the “real questions”. To save you all the pain, I’m going to quote two as a “compare and contrast” in addition to being examples:
and
jibeaux
@Krista:
Speaking of white people singing like black people, do you know the Duhks (insert shout out to Manitoba here)? They have a French Canadian lead singer who can do a pretty good rendition of someone heavier and blacker than herself.
Pangloss
I doubt I’ll produce a heartier laugh out loud for many weeks.
JK
Seriously!!
This is the same Mark Halperin who said this about media bias in the 2008 presidential election
Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.
“It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war,” Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”
h/t Politico Halperin at Politico/USC conf.: ‘extreme pro-Obama’ press bias, 11/22/08,
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15885.html
The same Mark Halperin who had this exchange in a radio interview
BILL GEDDIE: Haven’t we heard all along that [John Edwards] doesn’t like [Hillary Clinton], haven’t we heard this?
MARK HALPERIN: Yes, that’s right. And I can tell you, he’s really skeptical of her ability to be the kind of president he wants. But, he kinda thinks Obama is..he thinks Obama is kind of a pussy. He has real questions about Obama’s toughness, his readiness for the office.he has real doubts about Obama, not just as a president, but as a general election candidate.
Halperin later posted this lame apology on his Page:
“I’m sorry. In a live radio interview this week, I used a word I shouldn’t have. The fact that I was conveying other people’s words is no excuse for my lapse in judgment. It won’t happen again.”
h/t Huffington Post Time’s Halperin Apologizes For Saying Edwards “Thinks Obama Is Kind Of A Pussy”, February 13, 2008, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/times-halperin-_n_86504.html
To quote Babu from Seinfeld, Mark Halperin is a “very, very bad man”
jrg
I think Obama should nominate bearded, midget, hermaphroditic siamese twin hockey moms, where one head is pro-choice, and the other is pro-life.
It’s critical that we take this important measure to restore diversity and ideological balance to the court.
Halperin is oppressed. If it were not for political correctness, he or Byron York would be a shoe-in for Souter’s vacancy on the Supreme Court.
ABS
Right because most of Obamas cabinent appointments are black.
What a fuckwad Halperin is
rob
@kris
For me it’s the snarky-ness with a tad of righteous indignation that gave me the impression DougJ was you know, black. That’s okay, I like cream with my coffee in the morn.
os
its hard out there for those white christian men. i mean look all the things holding you back? i mean white men cant even apply for the job because their white. You know in republican think that could be considered a hate crime but you know repubs dont believe in crimes of thought so whatever. Slap Halprin if you see him
Krista
Nope, never heard of them. Will have to check them out – thanks!
Snark and indignation know no geographical or societal boundaries. Russell and Einstein felt that mankind would be drawn together by remembering its common humanity. Perhaps they should have added something about the universal nature of snark.
Kris
@rob:
Same here.
My blackdar online and off has been bad recently. :(
El Cid
Halperin has a point. We have to move Bill Ayers to the top of the list.
Gregory
Well, after all, according to Jonah Goldberg, the white male is the Jew of liberal fascism.
Sheesh.
Anton Sirius
@DougJ:
If I have to hear “Yamo Be There” one more time, I’m going to “Yamo” burn this place to the ground.
used to be disgusted
@18, Mike in NC: Major props for “I’ve been keeping myself down so long it looks like up to me.” Funniest thing I’ve read all week.
Zifnab
Picking a young rich white man to the SCOTUS is just normal. Picking a hispanic woman or a black man or any other non-white, non-male combination is affirmative action racism.
Unless Obama does pick a white man for the post, at which point we have to ask whether he’s really doing enough for the minority interest groups that got him elected.
Douche Baggins
Souter’s out, Ginzy’s in debatable health (FSM bless her, but come on), Stevens is catching up to Methuselah — could it be that Barry X has THREE appointments in his first term? Hell, he could appoint Glenn Beck for the first replacement just for the pure comedy value and still leave the Court in better shape than when he found it.
Tho’ for my money I’d like to see Glennzilla, Digby and David Corn get the nods. Plus some ninja clerks to kick Scalia in the balls when he’s not looking. And a pubic hair on a doily delivered daily to Thomas. And a copy of My Pet Goat for Alito. Ninjas on the SCOTUS would be awesome!
Douche Baggins
Souter’s out, Ginzy’s in debatable health (FSM bless her, but come on), Stevens is catching up to Methuselah — could it be that Barry X has THREE appointments in his first term? Hell, he could appoint Glenn Beck as the first replacement just for the pure comedy value and still leave the Court in better shape than when he found it.
Tho’ for my money I’d like to see Glennzilla, Digby and David Corn get the nods. Plus some ninja clerks to kick Scalia in the balls when he’s not looking. And a pubic hair on a doily delivered daily to Thomas. And a copy of My Pet Goat for Alito. Ninjas at the SCOTUS would be awesome!
Douche Baggins
Double post. I must be one of those fucking retarded fucks that JDM is always going on about.
Legalize
And another thing, how come there is no WHITE history month?!
/obligatory
Incertus
I suppose I could give Halperin the benefit of the doubt and say that someone else might have written his headline, but it’s so in keeping with the other crap he’s written in the past that I don’t feel it’s worth the effort.
Betsy
@Douche Baggins:
While it’s true that Ginsberg’s physical health is a big question mark, I saw her speak at an informal round table back in March, and I think she is still sharper than I’ll ever be. She looked very frail, but when she answered questions her thoughts came out in paragraphs. Organized, lucid, thoughtful, and to the point. I am so grateful for her presence on the court and only wish there were more like her. I love that in addition to her brilliant legal mind, she still has the capacity for outrage at injustice and stupidity (see her read-from-the-bench dissents in Carhart and Ledbetter, and her obvious frustration with the rest of the boys during oral arguments over school administrators strip searching a teenager).
But yes, the white man has suffered enough. Won’t someone think of the children? How the little white boys will look in vain for role models in positions of authority and respect? How their dreams and self-respect will be crushed when they learn that (hypothetically) they no longer earn more money for the same work than women and people of color? Maybe they’ll just give up. Or maybe they’ll go Galt, depriving our great nation of their desperately needed talents. WHAT THEN, HMMM????
Hunter Gathers
@Legalize:
Texas does. Sure it’s that month that the kiddies learn about the Texan War fo Independence, but it’s pretty much the same thing.
Al Swearengen
The indignities of Chief Justice Malcolm X are just too fresh in the memories for the poor dears.
Hunter Gathers
@Betsy:
We’ll call it national Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out Day.
And the children will rejoice.
Zifnab
Yeah, but they’re all to the left of Kennedy, who is the swing vote on the court. If Thomas or Scalia kick it, we might be in business. As it stands, Obama will just be maintaining the status quo.
Mwangangi
DougJ does NOT sound like a black person from Ra-Cha-Cha, or even B-Lo; maybe Ithaca or West Valley…
RSA
Me, I’ve cleverly arranged to have a few non-white ancestors in my family tree.
Lilly von Schtupp
I’m too lazy and a little scared to google, but what’s a “choad”. I remember in the movie Orgazmo, his trusty sidekick was called Choada Boy. I can only imagine what it means.
Can someone give me a “family friendly” definition?
Hunter Gathers
@Lilly von Schtupp:
From the Urban Dictionary
cleek
it’s a wiener that’s wider than it is long
Corner Stone
@Zifnab:
Pelican Brief! Pelican Brief!
/NSA
/SS
djork
Hilarious!!!
rob
@Krista & Kris
There you have it, the election of President Obama bringing us all together. Beautiful…
Lilly von Schtupp
@ Hunter Gathers
Thanks!
LD50
This is completely brilliant. John should hand the keys to his blog over to you.
JenJen
It was pretty amusing listening to Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan “cautioning” the President vis-a-vis the forthcoming SCOTUS nomination. I believe Scarborough said something about “Democrats always lose culture wars” and Pat Buchanan giddily agreeing.
Actually, Joe and Pat, at this point President Obama could nominate Angela fucking Davis and there isn’t a damn thing the GOP could do about it. :-)
omen
how much longer must the white man be made to suffer?
JosieJ
@JM:
I’m sure ‘Big John’ Cornyn would be happy to volunteer!
Seanly
@JM:
Doesn’t Lou Dobbs do this already?
Halperin’s a complete asshat. All of the questions are framed in a “this is good news for Republicans” or “how can the Democrats mess this up please”.
I wanna see Che Fucking Guevara on the Supreme Court. No compromise, no moderates. We need another freakin’ liberal on the court.
Nellcote
How does one “apply” to be a supreme court justice?
kay
I think Republicans should continue to come out strongly against seating any woman on the Supreme Court. Make sure to grill her relentlessly on abortion, and only on abortion, because that’s really all the women-folk know: issues relating to children. It’s biological! We’re the experts!
Just ignore the fact that there are more women in law school than men, and that state courts have scads of elected female judges, more every year.
I swear, they’re going to have to overturn suffrage to win another national election.
Bob
As a wite guy, I cannot see being well represented by most of the white males on the court anyway.
dmsilev
@JenJen:
Guess those twits have missed the recent series of polls showing that Gay Marriage is near or at the 50% approval mark. Etc.
-dms
kay
@Bob:
I want a liberal who comes from a state court. I don’t care what they look like.
Oh, and no crying spouse at the confirmation hearings. No self-pity allowed when you’re getting the best lifetime job in the world. Just suck it up. I’m looking at you, Mrs. Alito. The spouse rules apply to men, too.
smiley
@Bob:
I’m not white. My color is what Crayola used to label as “flesh”. Pink works sometimes too.
Pangloss
What about Harriet Miers? Still available?
shabadoo
I’m pretty sure Obama isn’t even considering nominating me for SCOTUS. I’m white, after all.
Hunter Gathers
@dmsilev: Joe “Dead Staffer in Office” Scarborough and Pat “Grand Wizard” Buchanan will pitch a fit if he names anyone other than a good ‘ol boy to SCOTUS. These people are nothing if not predictable.
Colette
@JM:
Absolute genius – I think substituting “doughy” for “craggy” is the only potential improvement.
wasabi gasp
Honky, please!
JK
@JM:
@LD50:
@JosieJ:
Although the television and movie-viewing public generally think of Iron Eyes Cody as an American Indian, his heritage was questioned in 1996 by The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which reported, based on an interview with a half sister, May Abshire, and baptismal records and other documentation, that Mr. Cody was a second-generation Italian-American from Louisiana. Mr. Cody denied that report
h/t NY Times Iron Eyes Cody Obituary http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/05/arts/iron-eyes-cody-94-an-actor-and-tearful-anti-littering-icon.html
See also http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/ironeyes.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody
Sarcastro
“Politics up to the minute” took 2:21 to load.
asiangrrlMN
I will not click the link. My teeth are on edge as it is. I will support a poor white man fund the minute hell freezes over, and not a minute sooner.
This kind of thing really chaps my ass. Harumph. I can’t even be scathingly funny about it because…well, um…bite me.
That’s all I got. I shot my wad. I want a woman of color–Elena Kagan looks like a good choice. Barring that, I will settle for a white woman.
P.S. I thought the person who wrote an AA woman meant Asian American. Alas, I realize it’s not true. Let me tell you this. If Obama picks an Asian American woman for the post, I will extend favors to anyone on this board who would so desire them.
asiangrrlMN
One more thing: I always envisioned DougJ as white, but that tends to be my default position on people on the internet unless I know differently.
chrome agnomen
leave the white man alooone!! leave him alooooone!
ricky
Douche Baggins:
No, you are simply ignorant as your chosen name implies.
ricky
I think one of those fine young women from Pat Robertson’s law school would be a refreshing choice.
Mwangangi
@asiangrrlMN: What if the ‘favor’ was to support Pat “I should have be born a century earlier when my way of life was still acceptable” Buchanan to the next seat?
Zoogz
So, if an African-American woman is next in line for the bench…
why aren’t we thinking Michelle Obama?
asiangrrlMN
@Mwangangi:
Bite me. Let me rephrase that. “I will extend favors to any who desire them as long as said favors do not violate every moral fiber I possess.”
There you go.
P.S. I must correct myself. Elena Kagan is not a woman of color. Sonia Sotomayor is–she’s a Latina, so that will satisfy two bases at once. Someone else on the list is Harold Koh–he’s Asian. He would be the first Asian American on the Supreme Court.
Gah! Choices, choices!
Zoogz, I like the way you think. That would blow the conservatives’ minds to littler pieces.
JM
Well, if my CRYING WHITE MAN COMMERCIAL idea is a hit with the folks here, how to we make it a reality?
I confess, I do not own a TV studio.
4tehlulz
>>I confess, I do not own a TV studio.
The Intertrons have made such facilities unnecessary.
asiangrrlMN
@JM: Well, my brother has wanted to shoot different commercials for a while now. I write. I can ask my bro if he would like to shoot this. We have lots of white men in MN. I am sure I can find a few who would be willing to do this commercial. We also have a good university, a thriving LGBT community, and everything else needed. What sayeth you?
Colette
I will not be satisfied with anything less than a lesbian of mixed black/Hispanic/native American/Asian heritage, with a legally married illegal immigrant wife, who has had both a kid and an abortion, is a military veteran, is from the deep South, and has an online law degree from Regent University. And I’m going to hold my breath and stomp my feet until I get what I want!
Edit: but it’s OK if her wife is white, as long as she’s transsexual, too.
smiley
I predict he’ll nominate a white woman this time (he’ll have other opportunities) and then dare the rightwingers to call it “identity politics”, given that the identity of 50% of the population is “women”.
Edited.
AnneLaurie
I still think Anita Hill would be perfect (although I doubt the poor woman wants the aggravation). Then, when Clarence Thomas discovers he has “health issues” which forestall his continued “what Fat Nino said” presence
on the benchin the room, Obama replaces him with Elliot Spitzer or John Edwards, either of whom are guaranteed to make Roberts’ starched boxers climb up his tightly-clenched buttcrack even when they’re not inspiring Scalia to new heights of scabrousness.tc125231
Why do you read Halperin? It’s like reading McArdle –or obscenities on a men’s room wall.
No good can come of it.
asiangrrlMN
@AnneLaurie: Oh, the delicious wickedness of it. I would love to see Anita Hill nominated (in my mind because I don’t know enough about her to seriously recommend her). Heh.
Betsy
@Zoogz:
Sadly, I believe etiquette, if not law, precludes appointing a family member to any post, much less Supreme Court Justice.
Das Internetkommissariat
@Hunter Gathers:
David Duke’s in prison in Europe (Czech Republic) for denying the holocaust.
Corner Stone
@Betsy: You mean like Attorney General for instance?
Mwangangi
@asiangrrlMN: Consider my efforts a vaccination against future, more potentially embarrassing/humiliating openings in your remarks. You do know what goes on here, right?
Zoogz
@ Betsy:
I thought that the DoJ was there to get around pesky laws with well-drafted memos and such.
Left Coast Tom
@Betsy:
Cheney appointed himself GOP Vice-Presidential nominee…
iluvsummr
How about John Yoo? I say John Yoo for SCOTUS! I mean, he clerked for Clarence Thomas and has shown impeccable logic and legal reasoning ever since. And for some reason those morans at Berkeley don’t appreciate him.
I’m a hold my breath and stamp my feet until Yoo gets nominated.
Umm, can Balthazar Garzon subpoena a sitting member of the US supreme court?
psycholinguist
I get this attitude from my freshman students when I introduce the topic of affirmative action.
It’s pretty easy to peal away about half the class when I explain that I’m not talking about race, I’m talking about gender, and that issue of “YOU” (I say pointing to the little conservative bowhead overachiever sitting in the front row) making 76cents on the dollar, being laid off because your lazy male co-worker is the “breadwinner”, etc.
Then I show them the last 5 senate group pictures and ask them who in the room appears to be most likely to end up in that position of power.
Joel
Mark Halperin updated his profile picture:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1046/1389130607_df17934768.jpg?v=0
Snark Based Reality
I will be so disappointed if Obama doesn’t pick a white woman who happens to be a gay married lesbian who is pro-choice. Anything else would be to waste a perfectly valuable right-wing freakout.
asiangrrlMN
@Mwangangi: Considering the fact that I instigate half the crap that goes on here, yeah, I know. I also know that the chance the next SCOTUS will be an Asian American female is nil, so I can make pretty much any damn promise I want.
gil mann
Chiggidy-check yourself, ricky. I’m pretty sure he’s one of the regs over at Hot Chicks with Douchebags, and therefore someone you do not want to get on the bad side of, lest you find yourself immortalized in a diss-track, haiku stylee.
Bet nobody can tell I’m white.
SGEW
@asiangrrlMN:
Maybe he can nominate Sonia Sotomayo and Harold Koh? They can serve alternating terms. Conversely, Harold Koh could go transsexual (as well as being transnational, ho ho ho [1]).
To tell the truth, much as I would love to see a disabled Inuit-African-Indian-Sephardim bisexual trans on the SCOTUS, I’m perfectly willing to settle for someone who isn’t a white catholic male. I mean, we have five of them on the bench now.
[1] Law jokes. Kill me now.
asiangrrlMN
@SGEW: Yah, I hear ya! I really am just looking for a little diversity, not the hole shebang. That’s why I can comfortable make my promise without any need to actually back it up or walk it back.
P.S. I hadn’t known that five of the SCOTUS are Catholic before today. The next one better not be.
P.P.S. It has always been striking to me when white men whine about not being included when they are overrepresented, in part because it just displays the sheer arrogance of the mindset. That particular kind of white male thinking is especially off-putting because they continue to see themselves as the victims.
ricky
gil mann
Thanks. I’ll put my GOP hat on backwards. East coast retard style.
rikyrah
Hilarious…
But, true.
Looking for the XX Chromosome pattern this time, and see nothing wrong with that.
Hedley Lamarr
White Men Need Not Apply
And, please, no more Catholics right now, eh?
kay
This whole thing gender/judiciary nonsense is just another indication of two things: that Republicans are living in 1984, and that the media follow Republicans back to 1984, like lemmings.
We don’t have this discussion at the state level regarding the judiciary. We just don’t. We haven’t since the late 1980’s. It’s over. Women won. “Win” I should say, because we elect judges in my state. They win a lot. They win as prosecutors. They win as AG’s.
I think this is so unfair to the eventual candidate. The fact is, there is a strong bench of female candidates for the SCOTUS because they’ve been consistently seated as lower-level judges, in big numbers, for a quarter of a century. They didn’t get there magically. It took a long time. Better than half of them had to get elected.
The pool is huge, unless you limit the choices to sitting judges at the federal level, where they’re appointed, and I don’t know why anyone would do that.
It will be wildly competitive, just among women, EVEN IF we’re assuming he appoints a woman, because it already is.
Raging Bee
Yo, Bender, long time no see! Hear from Kentucky Fried Sophist Martin Cothran lately?
(I posted on his blog as Motheral, just for the record.)
I read Halperin’s novels a long time ago. Wierd, to be sure, but good in their own respective weird ways. I was about to ask what he’d got up to since the people he wrote speeches for got kickied to the curb; now I have my answer, and I wish I hadn’t asked. What a sad waste of talent.