Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

In my day, never was longer.

This fight is for everything.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Republicans in disarray!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Alexandra Petri Takes On Boof & Madam VP Hosts a Round Table With State Legislators

Alexandra Petri Takes On Boof & Madam VP Hosts a Round Table With State Legislators

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Sorry, but the Constitution contains no right to eat dinner

by Alexandra Petri

“Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner. There is a time and place for everything. Disturbing the dinner of all of our customers was an act of selfishness and void of decency.” — Statement from Morton’s, after protesters gathered outside the D.C. steakhouse while Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh ate there.

Oh, this is embarrassing! The right to congregate and eat dinner is actually not to be found anywhere in the Constitution. I have been studying the Constitution very carefully, including the emanations of the penumbras, and I can see why people might think there was some inherent right to dinner. Eating seems so fundamental: Whether or not you want to have steak inside yourself seems like something you ought to be able to determine on your own behalf. Eating and chewing, alone or in the company of others, feels as though it ought to be up to the person most affected, and protected from abridgment of any kind, even by the states.

But actually, there is a higher authority to whom we must answer on this question. The Bible (technically not the Constitution, but there are people working to fix that!) relates that Adam and Eve ate dinner, once, in public, and this was such a grave offense that they were kicked out of their home immediately and hassled with flaming swords.

Mankind was then forced to develop farming and wear pants.

More at the link.  I had to bold that last line as Baud bait.

h/t Josie

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  5. 5.

    E.

    “He might want his old freedom back, or ask for someone to escort him through the gantlet of protesters who want him to feel bad about his choices, which after all don’t affect anyone other than millions of people whose lives are going to be fundamentally changed and whom he is consigning to a status lower than that of full person with the bodily autonomy and right to direct their lives that this entails.”

  6. 6.

    mrmoshpotato

    after protesters gathered outside the D.C. steakhouse

    These whiny, snowflake assclowns. I can only assume these idiots also whine if someone yells at them in traffic.

  9. 9.

    Tony Jay

    “His right to pay me for cooking him food trumps your right to peacefully express your disgust at his attack on your rights. Right?”

    “Wrong.”

     

    He should have asked the really smart and qualified Justice for clarification before he opened his trap. Or maybe he did.

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    WTF?  FYWP!

    Anyway, adding to my comment…

    NEW: Justice Brett Kavanaugh had to exit through the rear of Morton's on Wednesday night after DC protestors showed up out front. A Morton's rep told me: "Politics … should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner." https://t.co/wlA4J2nxYW pic.twitter.com/jpsfhB3JVo— Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) July 8, 2022

    Gotta assume that the blackout drunk alleged college rapist had to leave through the kitchen. Ya know, passing all of the staff. Ewwww.

  13. 13.

    kindness

    What is even curiouser is that the conservatives on the court (about 10 years ago) found it was perfectly fine for protestors to protest outside the homes of abortion providers & their employees.

    Gee…I wonder what the difference is?

  14. 14.

    Bill Arnold

    The Alexandra Petri piece is very funny.  (The [apparent] misspelling of dessert/desert is … edgy.) Her link to atlasobscura on fava beans is worth checking out too if one is not already familiar with the subject:
    According to Pliny, Pythagoreans believed that fava beans could contain the souls of the dead, since they were flesh-like. Due to their black-spotted flowers and hollow stems, some believers thought the plants connected earth and Hades, providing ladders for human souls. The beans’ association with reincarnation and the soul made eating fava beans close to cannibalism.

  15. 15.

    Suzanne

    @Alison Rose :

    All abortions should be performed in a restaurant while the pregnant person is eating surf ‘n turf and knocking back an IPA.

     

    Except for the IPA part, I have to admit that this would be an improvement.

  17. 17.

    trollhattan

    Daughter comes home from school for weekend, pants optional. Brings friend, pants mandatory. Whose house is this, anyway?

  23. 23.

    catclub

    @Gin & Tonic: Here I thought farming was Godly work. Who knew?

    Isn’t there something in Cain Killing Abel that Cain was a farmer and brought grain as an offering but Abel was a shepherd and brought lambs, which were better received?

  25. 25.

    Josie

    “He might say, “This is a horrible constraint to put on me! I am just trying to live my life, with my family, according to my own lights! I just want to have dinner, like a person!” And I sympathize! I would love to find that this was a right. But there is no right, however seemingly basic, that cannot vanish away like a ghostly mist the second someone remembers that there might be a medieval text, somewhere, out there that disagrees. And the Bible. And the beans. I’m sorry! My hands are tied.”

  31. 31.

    geg6

    Poor Boof.  Is he feeling like his privacy has been violated?  I haz a sad.  Not.

  33. 33.

    Leto

    @Nicole: Boof was always free to travel to another Morton’s out-of-state, as that’s considered a not unreasonable burden.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    @Suzanne:

    Oscar Isaac has been wearing alleged kilts lately, but they’re all mid-calf length. Someone needs to tell him there’s a reason why knee-length is a classic, and that’s because it looks good on almost everyone. Mid-calf is hard to pull off.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    So sad he was inconvenienced. It’s not just the poor unwashed who must face the consequences of their actions. Asshole.

  38. 38.

    debbie

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Remind me, did these people complain when the RWNJs paraded with their AR-15s through the front yards of supporters of Ohio’s health director because she had urged COVID vaccinations? Thought not.

  39. 39.

    SpaceUnit

    Wasn’t there a similar incident a couple of years ago in which Sarah Huckabee Sanders got hounded out of a restaurant somewhere in DC or Georgetown?  A place called the Red Hen or something.

    From now on anytime some wingnut is forced to sneak their meal out the back door in a doggy bag it should be known as taking one’s dinner a la boof.

  41. 41.

    hueyplong

    This Boof thing smells like Pence going to a Colts game so that he could be insulted by a National Anthem kneel-down and storm out of his luxury box in a huff to make a story for FoxNews to pound 24/7.

    We’ll find out KKKavanaugh went out the back to make a story, and that no rational person would have been in fear and/or felt the need to make an escape.

  43. 43.

    Ken

    @hueyplong: no rational person would have been in fear and/or felt the need to make an escape.

    We’re not talking about a rational person, we’re talking about a Trump-appointed Supreme Court justice.

  44. 44.

    Matt McIrvin

    This is just making me think of the old Hebrew National ad with Uncle Sam, surprised that Hebrew National uses higher-quality meats than he requires: “We answer to a HIGHER authority.”

  48. 48.

    Gin & Tonic

    So Elon Musk signs a binding contract to buy Twitter at a high price, the stock goes down, now he wants to say “just kidding.” The lawyers will love this – it will be generating billable hours for *years.

  50. 50.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SpaceUnit: Just FTR, he had to leave by the back door since, had he departed by the official entrance, it would have been a front de boof…​

    And if he’d taken what was left of his bottle of wine, the wags would’ve called if Boof bourguignon … :^p

    (Aisle let myself out now…)

  51. 51.

    Geminid

    @SpaceUnit: I think Huckabee Sanders was confronted at the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia. The confrontation wasn’t that hostile, though, at least not how I remember the reporting.

  52. 52.

    Gin & Tonic

    It seems that a comment cannot end with an “*” – the character disappears.

  54. 54.

    Barbara

    @Geminid: ​Kirstjen Nielsen (ICE) had to leave a restaurant after the intentional separation of young children from their parents became public.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: Sometimes when you edit, a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence is taken as a sacrifice.

    Had you edited your comment when that disappeared?  Or did it never show up in the first place?

    edit: I ended my comment with an * and it didn’t show up so I guess i have my answer.

    Oh, and the question mark at the end of sentence 3 was taken as a sacrifice when I edited.  Small price to pay, I guess.

  59. 59.

    Feathers

    @Mai Naem mobile: It’s funny. The first I ever learned about Musk was his first wife Justine’s blog, back when I was reading lots of writing blogs. So Nightmare Ex was pretty much how I’ve always had him pegged.

  60. 60.

    apocalipstick

    @catclub: That’s often the Sunday School interpretation, but the actual text does not explain why God was angry with Cain, it just says it was so. I like to think it was because Cain was just a tremendous asshole.

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    @Barbara: In June of 2018, the Red Hen’s assistant manager asked Huckabee Sanders to leave. In the aftermath, the restaurant closed for two weeks due to threats and such. Eleven months later, a co-owner wrote in the Washington Post that “business is stlll good” and that other small businesses should not fear taking a stand.

        Wikipedia tells me that the Lexington Red Hen experienced a flood of negative Yelp reviews, as did restaurants of the same name in DC, Swedesboro NJ and Old Saybrook CT. The Olde Red Hen in Toronto, Canada was also downrated in reviews, as well as The Little Red Hen in Muntunlupa, the Philippines.

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    Anything that isn’t praising them and paying for their dinner is considered a hostile act. Any time anyone complains that they are crap, stupid, an asshole, a fuck up deluxe, worse than stepping in fresh dog shit, etc requires them to learn all over again – how to forget who and what they are doing and whom they are doing it to because god forbid that they might learn and do something better – or not at all. And they really, really, really like fucking over the most amount of people at one time that can be arranged, for the least amount of cost to themselves.

  64. 64.

    Jager

    @SpaceUnit:

    Nobody inside Morton’s even knew there were protestors outside, Kavanaugh finished his meal and it was suggested he leave via the back door. The Morton’s manager really fucked up, with the snarky statement.

  66. 66.

    Jerzy Russian

    @MattF:

     

    Musk has filed with the SEC saying he’s pulling out

    Based on the large number of kids he has, he is not that good at pulling out.

  67. 67.

    SpaceUnit

    @Jager:

    Dammit, don’t ruin my fun.

    I prefer to imagine Kavanaugh shoving his steak and baked potato into his trouser pockets and stumbling out the rear entrance as an angry mob with pitchforks and torches gathers out front.

  68. 68.

    planetjanet

    @Jager: That Morton’s is not some bucolic suburban neighborhood.  It is in the heart of the DC business district.  The restaurant is on the second floor, so no one would be seeing protesters out the window while they dined.  Across the street from the entrance is one of the busiest Metro stops in DC.  A crowd in that neighborhood could be any day ending in Y.

  69. 69.

    marklar

    Once you enter a restaurant, you should not be permitted to stop eating, regardless of whether or not you want to order or complete your meal. Moreover, there should be no exceptions even if the meal contains salmonella that could endanger your life. Heck, it shouldn’t even matter if somebody else dragged you into the restaurant and placed an order for you. Finish. Your. Meal. Brett.

  70. 70.

    Geminid

    @HinTN: Not sure. The co-owner did say that their hate mail was balanced by letters of support. Lexington is a college town with a lot of open-minded people and I’m not surprised that the restaurant still did fine. Don’t know how they fared in the pandemic, though.

  73. 73.

    JDM

    @apocalipstick:  According to Cain on Lucifer, “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to tell people, “Abel is the asshat.”? Nobody ever believes me.”

  74. 74.

    Lobo

    Actual title of article at WP.  Left without comment.
    Even conservative justices have a right to privacy

  76. 76.

    Tony G

    @Lobo: I guess the Washington Post is in a contest with the New York Times for the coveted award of Worst Major Newspaper.  The Supreme Court decided recently that there is NO right to privacy.  Jesus Christ.

  77. 77.

    Bill Arnold

    @Tony G:

    Boof, and his Christian-fascist friends, are in no physical danger. They really need to STFU.

    They probably are in increased physical danger. Any time 10s of millions of people are very angry at you, there is risk.
    Whether the risk increase is more than e.g. that incurred from having a pro-Democatic Party yard sign or bumper sticker in a Red town is arguable.
    But they are grotesquely partisan hacks, writing decisions that will adversely affect 10s or even 100s of millions of Americans, and billions of humans with West Virginia vs the EPA. That’s sort of like sticking their Christian Supremacist yard signs in the middle of the living rooms of 10s of millions of homes without consent.

  78. 78.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Lobo: seriously? These are the same people.who didn’t think Bill Clinton had a right to privacy even going as far as knowing about his dick but these snowflakes can’t handle a few protesters while having 24/7 security paid for by us. BTW anybody catch the blurb about  the US tax payer currently paying $2M for security for Mike Pompeo? Wtf?  I wonder if Mike Pence even gets that kind of taxpayer paid for security? Did Joe Biden get that kind of security during 2017-2019?

  79. 79.

    Bill Arnold

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    BTW anybody catch the blurb about the US tax payer currently paying $2M for security for Mike Pompeo?

    Pompeo advocated for the assassination of the head of a branch of Iran’s government. The causal downstream consequences included the accidental shootdown of an airliner (PS752), which had the side effect of defusing the crisis ignited by Trump and Pompeo and others, at the cost of 176 passengers and crew.

    Pompeo is quite guilty, and the Iranians have been deliberately continuing threatening chatter, picked up by the US intelligence services.  And this is costing American taxpayers a lot, especially because Pompeo insists on jetting  around including to paid speaking engagements, against the suggestions of his security detail.
    Not to mention working to withdraw from the JCPOA, which turned the Iranian government very conservative, made the Iranian government fully realize that the Americans cannot be trusted, and will probably result in a 3-way regional nuclear arms race, perhaps ending in the destruction of Israel, which is something fervently desired by Mike Pompeo for religious reasons; he was literally abusing his political power to make his religion sect’s prophesies (not particularly biblically based) real.

  81. 81.

    El Muneco

    It is within the rights of a service establishment to refuse service to anyone. If that establishment does _not_ refuse service to someone, that is their choice, and they are responsible for the consequences.

    If they had told O’Kavanaugh that he was not welcome, they would not be in the spotlight.

    You reap what you sow.

  82. 82.

    Embra

    I saw a great tweet last night that noted Kavanaugh was free to eat dinner in another state.

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