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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / From the Bullshit Factory That is the NRO, That is Where…

From the Bullshit Factory That is the NRO, That is Where…

by John Cole|  June 29, 20093:31 pm| 54 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics

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To answer DougJ’s question, Rush got his talking point about 9-0 in a 5-4 ruling from the bullshit factory known as the National Review Online. Ed Whelan took his first stab at 10:52 with a post titled “Supreme Court vs. Sotomayor,” Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network and the NRO advances the ball with a post titled “Not a Single Justice Agreed with Sotomayor,” language that can be understood even through an oxycontin haze. The Judicial Confirmation Network statement is a gem:

“Frank Ricci finally got his day in court, despite the judging of Sonia Sotomayor, which all nine Justices of U.S. Supreme Court have now confirmed was in error.

“Usually, poor performance in any profession is not rewarded with the highest job offer in the entire profession.

“What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.

“The firefighters in New Haven who protect the public safety and worked hard for their promotions did not deserve to become victims of racial quotas, and the Supreme Court has now confirmed that they did not deserve to have their claims buried and thrown out by Judge Sotomayor.”

Then to drive the point home for the dimmer bulbs in the blogosphere, now that Dan Bartlett isn’t around to circulate the official notes for bloggers to “regurgitate,” at 1:52 pm Whelan belched up a post titled “Re: 9-0 Against Sotomayor.”

And there you have it. A 5-4 split decision along liberal/conservative lines has been transmogrified, with the mystical powers of right-wing bullshit, into a 9-0 decision against Sotomayor. The Wurlitzer lives. I challenge you to count the number of times this is repeated on Hardball or Fox news tonight, since I am going to be out hiking with the dog.

And has Jeffrey Rosen ever told us if Wendy Long, who was a clerk on the 2nd Circuit, was one of his “sources” for his hit piece on Sotomayor? I’d really like to know.

*** Update ***

See also, this. And this.

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Reader Interactions

54Comments

  1. 1.

    gex

    June 29, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    You think they’d tire of being so predictable.

    On the other hand, you’d think that moderates/lefties/Democrats would be able devise more effective strategies against such predictability.

    I got nothin.

  2. 2.

    chopper

    June 29, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    love it.

    “okay, now let’s look at some of alito and scalia’s cases that were overturned by the scotus, and…hey, where are you going? come back!”

  3. 3.

    gbear

    June 29, 2009 at 3:39 pm

    @gex:

    On the other hand, you’d think that moderates/lefties/Democrats would be able devise more effective strategies against such predictability.

    Unfortunately, that’s like trying to devise an effective strategy against pooping (which is equally predictable). There’s just no way that anything the democrats do is going to stop it.

  4. 4.

    Tom65

    June 29, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    The Appellate Court upheld the existing law, and the SC just practiced “judicial activism”. Not that you’ll hear a peep of that in any of the analysis, but there you have it.

    In other words, the system worked as it should have.

  5. 5.

    BDeevDad

    June 29, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    You’d think these guys could Google by now:

    “Specifically, we note that 38.7% of the decisions issued by the Warren, Burger and Rehnquist courts are unanimous.”

    Unanimous decisions are the norm.

  6. 6.

    Punchy

    June 29, 2009 at 3:43 pm

    This is so diff than the regular bullshit because the standard bullshit is always subjective shit like “the MSM is sooooo liberal!”. Cant be proven to not be true, so it must be.

    This, however, is a fucking number. And even conservative knuckledraggers have to be looking at the 5-4 numbers and saying “nine-oh….huh?…what the fuck?”

  7. 7.

    David Hunt

    June 29, 2009 at 3:46 pm

    Say, might this be counted as the first time that Roberts came down on the side of an individual over a government?

  8. 8.

    Comrade Stuck

    June 29, 2009 at 3:46 pm

    And Special Ed plays the “weak mind” card on the attack from a different direction.

    This creates a big problem for Obama and the Democrats in Congress. They certainly have the votes to confirm Sotomayor, but their big sell — that she was one of the appellate court’s most brilliant minds — just took a body blow on this decision.

  9. 9.

    smiley

    June 29, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    I can’t see this 9-0 meme sticking with anyone but the looniest of the loony. The MSM is reporting it as 5-4. I think most people will see that for what it is. However, It does convincingly demonstrate just how desperate and pathetic the Obama derangement syndrome crowd is.

  10. 10.

    Jennifer

    June 29, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    Silly silly, don’t you know that 9 is the new 5? (Kinda like 50 became the new 30 once the boomers got old.)

  11. 11.

    Ash Can

    June 29, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    I would express concern that all this intellectual contortion on the part of these people could cause them to suffer brain damage, but that horse has left the barn, taken a taxi to the harbor, boarded a freighter, and circumnavigated the globe several times over by now.

  12. 12.

    SGEW

    June 29, 2009 at 3:59 pm

    Explication from SCOTUSblog:

    . . . the dissenters . . . elect not to remand — which would have made the reversal 9-0 — and instead explain why the city should prevail, albeit on a slightly different ground. But they avoid making their disagreement with the court of appeals particularly explicit (the difference is the thin one between whether the city reasonably believed it would be engaging in disparate impact discrimination and whether a court would agree with that belief), and they clearly agree with the bottom line of the Second Circuit, though they disagree with the standard seemingly set by prior Second Circuit precedent.
    …
    In the end, it seems to me that the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci is an outright rejection of the lower courts’ analysis of the case, including by Judge Sotomayor. But on the other hand, the Court recognizes that the issue was unsettled. The fact that the Court’s four more liberal members would affirm the Second Circuit shows that Judge Sotomayor’s views were far from outlandish and put her in line with Judge Souter, who she will replace.

    The “9-0 meme” is based loosely on actual facts, but is aggressively disingenuous. But what else is new?

  13. 13.

    gbear

    June 29, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    I can’t see this 9-0 meme sticking with anyone but the looniest of the loony.

    If the 9-0ers are persecuted for their beliefs, it will be just like the patriots daring to wear green and fight for democracy in the streets of Iran.

  14. 14.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 29, 2009 at 4:04 pm

    I think “Nine-zip” refers to how many times per night a certain intoxicated radio pundit has to get up to take a leak.

    Just my theory of course.

  15. 15.

    SpotWeld

    June 29, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    I really have to take exception to the “Racial Quotas” being thrown out here.

    There were no qutoas!!

    The city of New Haven (perhaps wrongly) saw that the test resulted in a situation that could bring about a lawsuit.

    They reacted by *not* examining the test more deeply in order to make the promotions legally “bulletproof”, but rather by invalidating the existing test with the aims of finding one that was already “bullerproofed” in order to prevent the *appearance* of racial impartiality.

    There Was No Quota.

    At worst, there was a possible chilling effect due to other cases.

  16. 16.

    JGabriel

    June 29, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    smiley:

    I can’t see this 9-0 meme sticking with anyone but the looniest of the loony.

    Or those who get most/all of their news from Fox.

    Yeah, I know, there’s the glib response that there’s no distinction between Fox viewers and the looniest of the looney, but I continue to hope that some Fox viewers are just misguided instead of batshit insane, and can eventually be redeemed – in the sense of becoming better people, not in the coupon sense.

    .

  17. 17.

    David

    June 29, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    from wizbang:

    Breaking: SCOTUS Overrules Sotomayor on Ricci Case
    Posted by Kim Priestap
    Published: June 29, 2009 – 10:27 AM
    Well, this is a bit awkward. The AP is reporting that the Supreme Court just overturned . . .

    10:27

  18. 18.

    KG

    June 29, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    the only plausible argument that they could have is if the dissent was based on a different legal theory than the Second Circuit’s opinion. In which case, an argument could be made, rather facetiously, that all 9 Justices rejected the Sotomayer opinion. Something tells me that did not happen. Something also tells me that Kennedy’s decision does not have the bright line rule that Scalia and Alito wanted. (Those somethings are ten years of reading case law on such issues.)

  19. 19.

    corwin

    June 29, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    Plane crash? Do they really want to go there? I seem to recall a certain presidential candidate they preferred a few months back who had a couple of them.

  20. 20.

    Brick Oven Bill

    June 29, 2009 at 4:17 pm

    The only thing goofier than 9-0 is the fact that 4 Supreme Court Justices do not understand the 14th Amendment.

  21. 21.

    Calouste

    June 29, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    Did anyone so far analyze Sotomayor’s opinion in the case (if she wrote the 2nd circuit’s opinion at all, something which I don’t know) and see how it differed from the Supremes?

    The only thing out there at the moment is black and white, as you would of course expect from the wingnuts.

  22. 22.

    Comrade Stuck

    June 29, 2009 at 4:21 pm

    From the JCN link, uttered by Ms, Long.

    “What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.

    Analogy shark jump of day.

  23. 23.

    bago

    June 29, 2009 at 4:21 pm

    What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.

    So, one fifth as bad as a certain presidential candidate?

    Urk… Beaten twice.

  24. 24.

    Zuzu's Petals

    June 29, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    @chopper:

    Yeah, and let’s look at some of the Alito and Roberts decisions that were overturned unanimously by the USSC.

    Not to mention the special attention Sandra Day O’Connor gave to Alito’s reasoning in his Casey dissent. “Excoriating” is the word Jeffrey Toobin used.

  25. 25.

    Jennifer

    June 29, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    @Ash Can:
    You must be referring to Lyle Lovett’s pony.

  26. 26.

    Death By Mosquito Truck

    June 29, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.

    What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of planetary treason.

  27. 27.

    jcricket

    June 29, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    SSDD. Nothing we can do except learn not to fear these idiots, but to use their own idiocy as fuel for mockery and derision.

    They have nothing to offer the world anymore, not truth, not honesty, not solutions to our real problems. It’s not even good propaganda anymore. It’s like some sort of random outrage generator with only 10 inputs and 20 possible sentence combinations.

    At every turn Democrats should say, “we reached out to the GOP on this issue, unfortunately, the WATB brigade came out in full force, so we ended up going it alone” (or the equivalent but more media friendly phrase).

    There is no benefit to working with the GOP, or engaging their noise machine anymore than you have to to dismiss them like Obama swatting away a fly.

  28. 28.

    Comrade Stuck

    June 29, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of planetary treason.

    It’s the same as Lex Luther spiking Superman’s Gatorade with Kryptonite.

  29. 29.

    Michael Gass

    June 29, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    Ed Whelan. Where do we know that name from (yes, the outing of publius)?

    So, juvenile hack who can’t take criticism also can’t read straight. Didn’t he say he was a lawyer or something?

  30. 30.

    Tonal Crow

    June 29, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    Mine ears have heard the lying of the leaders of the GOP,
    They are trampling on the people like a rabid brutal cop,
    For they hate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: full stop,
    Their lies keep marching on.

    Glory, glory how they screw ‘ya,
    Glory, glory how they screw ‘ya,
    Glory, glory how they screw ‘ya,
    Their lies keep marching on.

  31. 31.

    Tonal Crow

    June 29, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    @jcricket: Exactly right.

  32. 32.

    Death By Mosquito Truck

    June 29, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    The only thing goofier than 9-0 is the fact that 4 Supreme Court Justices do not understand the 14th Amendment.

    That still doesn’t explain why Kennedy voted with them.

  33. 33.

    JGabriel

    June 29, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    @bago:

    So, one fifth as bad as a certain presidential candidate?

    I suspect that one will win the thread. It is a rather unfortunate analogy when one thinks about it from the wingnut perspective.

    .

  34. 34.

    SGEW

    June 29, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    B.O.B. is quite literally the last person who should talk about the god damned 14th amendment.

  35. 35.

    geg6

    June 29, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Well, if that great constitutional scholar BOB says four of our SCOTUS justices don’t understand the 14th Amendment, who am I to argue?

  36. 36.

    Comrade Stuck

    June 29, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    @SGEW:

    It escapes our resident troll, that the 14th amendment (as well as 13 and15th), were enacted after the Civil War to specifically address the evil legacy of slavery

  37. 37.

    Brick Oven Bill

    June 29, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    The 14th Amendment is about equal protection SGEW, not equal outcomes. This part of it is good.

  38. 38.

    LD50

    June 29, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    Well, if that great constitutional scholar BOB says four of our SCOTUS justices don’t understand the 14th Amendment, who am I to argue?

    Hey, he used to read all kinds of law books down at the public library, until he got himself banned for yelling things all the time.

  39. 39.

    LD50

    June 29, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    If 5 to 4 can be changed into 9 to 0 so easily, why didn’t the wingnuts just claim they WON the ’08 election?

  40. 40.

    SGEW

    June 29, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    @LD50: I’m still a little astonished that they didn’t.

  41. 41.

    JGabriel

    June 29, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    LD50:

    If 5 to 4 can be changed into 9 to 0 so easily, why didn’t the wingnuts just claim they WON the ‘08 election?

    Too soon. They just claimed in 2000 that a 5-4 decision in Bush’s favor was actually 7-2. Remember? They weren’t ready to go back to that well yet – guess they’ve changed their (and I use the word loosely) minds.

    .

  42. 42.

    Ash Can

    June 29, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    why didn’t the wingnuts just claim they WON the ‘08 election?

    They DID win. It’s just that all those off-white folks and ACORN types and DFHs skewed the results.

  43. 43.

    gex

    June 29, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    If 5 to 4 can be changed into 9 to 0 so easily, why didn’t the wingnuts just claim they WON the ‘08 election?

    Because they didn’t change the background color on their blogs in time.

  44. 44.

    Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s

    June 29, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    5-4 against her decision….

    but what nobody talks about is that Clarence Thomas was the only justice to think that strip-searching a 13 year-old girl was constitutional.

    That makes him a bigger constitutional idiot.

  45. 45.

    MCA

    June 29, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    Wait, wait, wait… What part of Scalia + Roberts + Alito + Thomas + Kennedy + Bork + the ghosts of Rehnquist, McReynolds and Taney = 9 do you people not understand? That is the current composition of the Supreme Court in the wingnut mind, right? Math mystery solved.

  46. 46.

    Xanthippas

    June 29, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    It’s a great disservice to our country that this decision comes out and a) conservatives immediately construe it for political points and b) liberals immediately attack the conservatives’ stupid meme. What does the decision actually say? Eh, who knows?

  47. 47.

    Zuzu's Petals

    June 29, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    @Death By Mosquito Truck:

    ‘Course the goofiest thing of all is that BoB (typically) doesn’t understand the case wasn’t decided on the 14th Amendment:

    Petitioners are entitled to summary judgment on theirTitle VII claim, and we therefore need not decide the underlying constitutional question. The judgment of theCourt of Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

  48. 48.

    Wile E. Quixote

    June 30, 2009 at 1:01 am

    @JGabriel

    Or those who get most/all of their news from Fox.
    Yeah, I know, there’s the glib response that there’s no distinction between Fox viewers and the looniest of the looney, but I continue to hope that some Fox viewers are just misguided instead of batshit insane, and can eventually be redeemed – in the sense of becoming better people, not in the coupon sense.

    I wonder if we could get the Republicans to exterminate themselves by getting a news story planted on Fox that eating lead-based paint chips is actually good for you and that it was evil lieberals who were trying to destroy America’s lead industry that spread the rumor that they weren’t. I’ll bet we could do it if we told all of the conservatives that they don’t eat lead-based paint chips in France, Iran and Iraq.

  49. 49.

    Wile E. Quixote

    June 30, 2009 at 1:03 am

    @LD50

    Hey, he used to read all kinds of law books down at the public library, until he got himself banned for yelling things all the time.

    Was that the public library where the toothless lesbian and the shirtless Asian woman (or was it the other way around?) kept getting into fights?

  50. 50.

    Groucho48

    June 30, 2009 at 1:28 am

    One thing I haven’t seen discussed. How strong a case did New Haven put up? Thinking about it…the white firemen were a cause celebre by the time the case got accepted to the Supreme Court. Most of the elected officials involved were white. What are the odds that they really wanted to win this case? I’m guessing slim to none. I’ve skimmed through the decision, but, I haven’t looked at the arguments. Has anyone done so? Or can anyone point to someone who has?

    From the decision, it sounds as though NH argued that it threw out the results of the written test because it was scared of a lawsuit. Shouldn’t they have offered more? I’ve always been under the impression that lawyers threw up as many arguments as they could think of, hoping one of them would stick.

  51. 51.

    Zuzu's Petals

    June 30, 2009 at 3:04 am

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Amazingly enough, at least one Fox guy was honest enough to dampen the flames a bit.

  52. 52.

    myiq2xu

    June 30, 2009 at 5:28 am

    What does the decision actually say? Eh, who knows?

    If you actually read the damn thing it’s obvious that a lot of the people talking about it didn’t.

    The decision is not a repudiation of Sotomayor nor does it question the constitutionality of Affirmative Action.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. A 9-0 decision might be construed as a rebuke. « кровь и чернила says:
    June 29, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    […] UPDATE: John Cole traces the evolution of this horse shit. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)JUDGE […]

  2. Liberal Supreme Court (”SCOTUS”) Justices Prove To Be Just As Correct On Reverse Discrimination Case As They Were On Eminent Domain (”Heller”) Ruling | THE GUN TOTING LIBERAL™ says:
    June 29, 2009 at 10:57 pm

    […] Democrat discussion as usual; John Cole of Balloon Juice (Left) says the “Righties” are portraying this as a 9-0 ruling against Sotomayor; Jazz Shaw of The Moderate Voice seems to be on my own brain level on the issue; Don Surber of The […]

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