Their knowledge of the fine shades and nuances between ‘gobshite’ and ‘shitweasel’ are why we pay judges the big bucks.
The New Republic article is a weird specimen. On the one hand, it(arguably correctly) identifies Scalia’s willingness to rubbish his colleagues, their arguments, and everything in general as the aspect enabling his most humorous work.
And then it dives off a cliff by pretending that his most humorous work is anything other than painfully banal, with frequent drift into ‘I can clearly see the dessicated husk of a dead joke there; but all its humor(s) dried up ages ago’ territory. (As in: “Expression, sure enough, a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.")
The New Republic’s breathless take makes it sound like H.L. Mencken with a side of jurisprudence. That would be pretty awesome; but we certainly don’t have it now.
Gotta know your gobshite from your shitehawk from your gobdaw from your gombeen!
That a reasonable comparison for Scalia (a fucking Supreme Court judge!) is a minor district court judge (bottom of the judicial food chain, overruled by everybody) says all you need to know about that gobshite.
It’s extraordinary that he is a judge at his level.
Personally I’m very curious about the defendant’s car car. Could the lawyer not have claimed that his client was being unfairly subjected to double taxation? Or, perhaps, that the device in question was not subject to being insured since it was never certified as a road-worthy vehicle in the first place? (the latter would of course depend on whether the penalty for operating such a vehicle would be less than for not having insurance)
Well, at least they didn’t overstate his jurisprudence.
I bow down in admiration to the Irish for their unmatched skill in finely-honed invective.
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