The Dignity of the Great State of Texas (and Other Notes)

See, the thing about Texas ....

It is, actually, a difficult proposition to pick on a whole state. After all, no population is monolithic. Still, though, there is a reason why one might note, as Tim Murphy of Mother Jones did last week, that—

As a Texas state senator, Dan Patrick has conducted himself in a manner consistent with the shock jock he once was. Patrick—who is now the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor—has railed against everything from separation of church and state to Mexican coyotes who supposedly speak Urdu. He’s even advised his followers that God is speaking to them through Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.

—and others will simply nod and mutter to themselves something about how that sounds right. Nor will those folks be surprised to find that the article only goes downhill from there.

And it is true that we see this over and over again, and while it is not some rarified view from an emerald tower to the far horizon, it is a difficult calculation to express just what it is they are doing wrong. Like art and obscenity, though, sometimes it is just plain apparent.

Whether it’s advocating violence against journalists, offering women money to abandon babies, tinkering with history in textbooks, trying to cram small government between women’s legs, showing his tolerance through intolerance, something about coyotes speaking Urdu, denigrating migrants, touting his own piety in order to be seen by other men, breaking Senate rules in order to try to force a bill through because, well, you know, God, mocking Asians, or arguing against the separation of church and state, there really isn’t anything about Murphy’s profile of the shoe-in to what is described as the most powerful office in Texas that doesn’t “sound Texas”.

One of the things about states’ rights is that in our democratic society, how our majority votes is one of the most apparent projections of what our society believes. It’s kind of like wondering what the Joni Ernst campaign means as an expression of Iowa values. Does any of this embarrass supporters?

And Texas? Come on, we saw Rick Perry in the 2012 primary. And it is still hard to explain the two presidential terms of George W. Bush. But for all the miserable disaster about Perry or Bush, or Ron “Legitimate Rape” Paul? Really? Does none of this embarrass the Texans who support these people?

Take Rep. Vance McAllister. The Republican from Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District is best known as the “kissing congressman”, and sure, it’s not the worst thing in the world for a member of Congress to be caught cheating on his wife. And some would make the point that, hey, it was just a kiss, you know? But what was really, really embarrassing about that episode, what seemed so unreal, was the back and forth about whether he would resign, or maybe simply not run for Congress again, and, well, now he actually trails the lone Democrat in a six-way race otherwise rated Safe Republican. Still, the only people annoyed by the controversy seem to be his opponents. And in truth, it is hard for outsiders to comprehend the context of Times-Picayune political reporter James Varney’s recent explanation of the race for LA5CD:

Is McAllister this bad? Does he actually have a chance of being re-elected?

Well, as for the first question, maybe not. He’s a veteran, for one thing. And he earned all that money through savvy personal business moves, for another. In addition, as his campaign stresses, he holds a bunch of excellent positions: he’s against amnesty; he thinks Obamacare is terrible.

So, taken all in all, McAllister is the sort of guy who could have kept his seat in Congress and a Robertson family duck blind forever if he could have simply resisted his married staffer.

Whether he has a chance or not is hard to determine. The Robertson clan, maintaining the Old Testament stance that jibes with their unshaven look, is backing and bankrolling a relative, Zach Dasher. Dasher, a political rookie, is also supported by outside groups like the Club for Growth.

It’s a crowded Republican field, too. The third candidate most people familiar with the field identify as a guy with a shot at the runoff is Ralph Abraham. Abraham holds both medical and veterinary degrees so he’s overqualified for the job. There isn’t a whole lot of daylight between the three men on the issues.

There’s also a Democrat in the race and, somewhat surprisingly, he’s reportedly got a shot at a spot in the runoff. There appears to be little reliable, objective polling data on the race. More than a month ago The News-Star in Monroe had McAllister leading the race with 27 percent followed by the Democrat, former Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo.

At some point, it seems as if we are reading a satire on Poe’s Law, which essentially asserts that at some point it becomes impossible to discern between satire or even parody to the one, and reality to the other. And when this sort of question was largely restricted to internet arguments about anything under the sun, it was whatever it was. As a particular notion was explained to me in 1995, “Remember, this is the internet. Any moron with a connection can have a soapbox.” To what degree the surfactant has permeated the social discourse is a complex question, of course, but there does come a point when it seems almost impossible to dismiss the simple fact of certain results. Dan Patrick and Rick Perry in Texas? Vance McAllister in Louisiana? “Fangate”, for heaven’s sake? Really, it sounds like a cruel joke, “America’s Wang”, except that, well, it’s Florida, so one nods and mutters, “Sounds about right.”

In the end, it’s not that we hate these people in these states, because we don’t. And we might hope that despite the general contempt they show the rest of American society they don’t actually hate us. But, damn it, what kind of friends, family, or neighbors would we be if we stood by, watching them denigrate and even hurt themselves, and simply say nothing?

Sometimes people embarrass themselves. And, yes, sometimes it’s really, really funny. But the point is to be able to look back on this, someday, and laugh. These aren’t storts of things we should be laughing at, though. The implications are serious. And when the history is written, and the damage is tallied, the indictments will be hideous. At this point, simply admitting there is a problem might be a generational process for some of these states.

And we can complain about the media all we want, but in the end, the only way to change it is to stop paying attention to what the stenographers journalists say. And in truth, not everybody is suited to read the news backwards, to start from the editorials and work back to the sources. Sometimes this proves fruitful, such as when one hears conservative commentators ranting about liberal judicial activism on the Supreme Court, and then finding the case they are talking about, and it turns out all the Court actually did was refuse to overturn the opinion of one of the most conservative state supreme courts in the nation.^α To the one, however, it is a laborious process, and sometimes source documents can be hard to find. To the other, there are some people who simply do not seem to understand how government works. And those would be the sort who would complain about the Supreme Court imposing its will on the states, but then be unable to figure out that had Missouri not pushed its losing cause in front of the Supreme Court, it would have stayed in the states. In this case, though, Missouri really, wanted to execute someone, demanded the Supreme Court’s attention, got it, and then failed to make the case. And if you put the question to certain people—How did the Supreme Court impose its will by leaving a state supreme court decision to stand?—it seems somehow incompatible with whatever is going on in their minds to understand that had the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the outcome would have been the same. Strangely, the dissonance of the complaint against liberal judicial activism creates an argument whereby the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting and overturning a state supreme court is the only outcome that would not constitute an imposition of will.

No, really, think about it. The three potential outcomes of Roper: (1) SCOTUS refuses to hear appeal, state supreme court decision stands; (2) SCOTUS hears appeal, upholds state supreme court decision; (3) SCOTUS hears appeal, overturns state supreme court decision. By the complaint of liberal judicial activism against the second possibility above—the one that came about—the first is similarly indicted for arriving at the same result; the third, technically, remains a mystery, but in this context of imposing against the states, the outcome that sees SCOTUS reject the state supreme court becomes the only one that does not impose the federal judiciary’s will on the states. The difference is in what part of a state one is looking at. It was the Missouri judiciary that imposed its judgment against the will of the state’s executive branch. And since the U.S. Supreme Court did not impose its will against the state judiciary, it imposed its will against the state executive branch. If it seems like a complicated accommodation for the executive branch of Missouri having asked the Supreme Court of the United States to impose its will? Well, right. That’s the problem with the rhetoric we hear from cable news commentary. And, really, considering what we know or believe about the “average voter”, who the hell has time to figure all that out? About everything?

And while all of this might seem a long and winding road from seeking divine inspiration in Duck Dynasty, we might hope to illustrate a larger issue. American society is lowering the proverbial bar for this crowd. And everybody selling something has a reason to play along. Simplistic sensationalism draws a news audience, which attends to the money bias^β. Simplified issue dynamics make for an appearance of greater efficiency and potency for campaign operations. And the candidates themselves have fewer details and quandaries to manage. In truth, the only losers in such a marketplace are the consumers, i.e., voters.

Stupidity is both simple and spectacular.

So, yes. We look to the low end of the data set, to what is dragging down the averages, and this is what we see? Yeah, the question persists: Aren’t they even a little bit embarrassed by all this?

It would be reassuring to believe they are.

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^α That decision would be Roper v. Simmons (2005), in which the Supreme Court declined to overturn the Supreme Court of Missouri. In this case, reading backwards from the editorial complaint about liberal judicial activism, we find the underlying accusation to be that the Supreme Court of Missouri is apparently too liberal and activist. And, frankly, if the Supreme Court of Missouri is too liberal and activist, one wonders what the threshold actually is.

^β You know that phantom liberal media conspiracy we hear about from time to time? It has always been about money, and part of the appearance of disparity in coverage is that while both sides indeed have their clowns, not all clowns are equal. What is the other side’s version of a Ted Haggard or George Rekers? Or Sarah Palin? Or Bryan Fischer? Or Ted Cruz? Really, if one asked about the other side’s John Boehner, it would be historically inaccurate to point to Nancy Pelosi. And there are reasons for this, and no, not all of them are moral or ethical indictments of conservative politics; much of it is just the fact of accelerating societal transformation and the resulting destabilization of prevailing cultural standards. That is to say, while conservatism itself is not inherently evil, there are reasons why it has come to this. That, in turn, is a larger discussion of its own.

Murphy, Tim. “Man Who Believes God Speaks to Us Through ‘Duck Dynasty’ Is About to Be Texas’ Second-in-Command”. Mother Jones. 21 October 2014.

Bowman, Bridget. “Poll Shows McAllister Race Is Wide Open”. Roll Call. 7 October 2014.

Everett, Burgess. “The passion of the ‘kissing congressman'”. Politico. 20 October 2014.

Varney, James. “Is Rep. Vance McAllister, R-La., a big, fat slob or just a cheater?” The Times-Picayune. 21 October 2014.

Where the Tide Takes Us

The application for stay presented to Justice Kennedy and by him referred to the Court is denied. The orders heretofore entered by Justice Kennedy are vacated.

―Supreme Court of the United States

This is not an unexpected outcome. Indeed, the blunt, unsigned order refusing Idaho’s request to stay the Ninth Circuit decision striking the state’s same-sex marriage ban is pretty much exactly expected. The only strange thing about it, really, is that the order exists at all.

The point arose last week when the Court refused to hear arguments from several states after Appeals courts struck their marriage bans. As Rachel Maddow explained to viewers:

So, there are nine Supreme Court justices. Do the math. If you want to win a case at the Supreme Court, you need five votes. You need five justices on your side. You need five votes to win a case.

But it only takes four votes for the Supreme Court to decide to take a case in the first place. So, we know there are four anti-gay marriage justices on the Supreme Court—Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas. If they had wanted to hear one of these cases today, if they had wanted the chance to overturn one of those pro-gay marriage cases from the lower courts, those four justices had enough votes to take the case to do it.

I mean, the anti-gay marriage side could have taken one of those cases if they want to. So, why didn’t they?

Latta is an Article IV case. The thing is that no excuse a judge might invent to try to get around Amendment XIV, the Equal Protection Clause, marriage equality runs up against the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV of the Constitution.

Given that the Supreme Court just said no to appeals in Article IV cases, one might wonder why Justice Kennedy thought to issue a stay and ask his colleagues to undertake another Article IV case.

Lyle Denniston brings us the answer:

Without explanation, the Supreme Court late Friday afternoon rejected a request by state officials in Idaho to postpone a lower-court ruling that had nullified the ban on same-sex marriage there. The two-sentence order also lifted an earlier order by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy temporarily delaying that decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

There were no noted dissents from the Court’s new order. Although it gave no reasons, the Court’s action was a further indication that the Justices are unwilling to be drawn into the constitutional controversy at this point, leaving it to lower courts to continue to explore it. Idaho officials had tried to convince the Court that their case was different from the ones that the Court had bypassed on Monday.

Certainly, it was a weak reason, but, you know, it is no big deal, right? Just making people wait for their civil rights in order to be nice to Idaho while they attempt to make an impossible argument.

Nonetheless, Idaho is go. And, you know, it was only a day. What’s another day after all these years?

Oh. Right. Obergefell. Which reminds, there is no news from the Sixth.

But there is news from North Carolina, where a District Court in Charlotte struck the Tar Heel State’s marriage ban according to Bostic v. Schaefer, a Fourth Circuit case the Supreme Court refused.

Additionally, Denniston explains the Ninth Circuit Memorandum issued Saturday, bringing a formal end to the moot Jackson v. Abercrombie in Hawai’i. It’s a happy ending.

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Supreme Court of the United States. “Order in Pending Case”. Otter v. Latta. 10 October 2014.

Maddow, Rachel. “‘Edie and Thea’ lead way to marriage equality, argle-bargle notwithstanding”. The Rachel Maddow Show. msnbc. 6 October 2014.

Denniston, Lyle. “No delay on Idaho same-sex marriages”. SCOTUSblog. 10 October 2014.

Cogburn, Max O. “Memorandum of Decision and Order”. General Synod of the United Church of Christ v. Resinger. United States District Court Western District of North Carolina Charlotte Division. 10 October 2014.

United States District Court for the District of Hawaii. “Memorandum”. Jackson v. Abercrombie and Bradley v. Abercrombie. 10 October 2014.

Follow-up … Clean-up … Something-up

Rachel Maddow’s nearly giddy segment on msnbc last night noted that when the full effect of yesterday’s Supreme Court rejection of appeals against marriage equality reaches the states, the roster will equal thirty states. And she looked forward to decisions expected from the Sixth and Ninth.

Today, the hammer dropped in the Ninth; Dale Carpenter quips:

I haven’t read the Ninth Circuit opinion yet. I have to teach now, so it would be nice if the courts would stop issuing gay-marriage decisions for an hour or so.

The estimable Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog explains what happened in the Ninth:

The Ninth Circuit’s ruling was made up of three parts.

First, all three judges on the panel joined in an opinion by Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt finding that the Idaho and Nevada bans violate the constitutional guarantee of same-sex couples to be treated the same legally as opposite-sex couples. Second, Judge Reinhardt issued a separate opinion, for himself only, saying he would also strike down those bans under the Constitution’s Due Process Clause, arguing that the right to marry is a fundamental guarantee and that gays and lesbians have a right to share in that right. Third, Circuit Judge Marsha S. Berzon, in a separate opinion only for herself, said she would have also struck down the bans on the premise that they discriminate on the basis of gender.

The third member, Circuit Judge Ronald M. Gould, joined only the main opinion on the equal protection principle.

This ruling was perhaps the least surprising among four federal courts of appeals decisions striking down state prohibitions on same-sex couples marrying, and already-married couples gaining official state recognition of those unions, performed elsewhere.

Something About Today: Quiet Hash

Sometimes the answers really are blowing in the wind, even if the answer is nothing more than the sounds of silence. Of course, in modern America genuine silence is hard to come by. Kate Nocera explains for Buzzfeed:

On Monday afternoon, Sen. Mike Lee was one of the few GOP members to issue a statement. His home state of Utah was one of the states where a marriage ban was overturned by an appeals court and the state is now moving forward with allowing same-sex couples to marry. Lee called the Supreme Court decision to not review the appeals “disappointing.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz likewise criticized the decision on the part of the court and announced that he would introduce a constitutional amendment that would allow the states to define marriage.

“I will be introducing a constitutional amendment to prevent the federal government or the courts from attacking or striking down state marriage laws,” Cruz said.

Supreme Court decisions are often met with swift reaction from members on Capitol Hill, filling reporter’s inboxes with statements of disappointment or support for whatever the justices have ruled. All the more when the decision impacts a hot-button social issue.

The muted response from congressional Republicans is telling. As public opinion on legalizing marriage for same-sex couples has dramatically shifted in its favor, the GOP’s opposition has quieted. Republicans have often argued that the decision on marriage should be left up to the states.

And let us bear in mind that Sen. Lee (R-UT) is from one of the rejected states; it’s hard for the Utah delegation to say absolutely nothing. And the Republican junior from Texas? Sen. Cruz, the strict constitutional constructionalist, is welcome to try. You know, since strict construction fails to satisfy his desires.

How It Goes: Recognition Edition

Last month, Emma Margolin undertook an effort to list the reasons why the Supreme Court was expected to take up marriage equality in the new term that began today. And, of course, something about today, because the msnbc reporter brings the news that we should add five states to the officially official marriage equality roster:

Marriage equality is coming to five more states – with six more on the way.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals to hear same-sex marriage cases out of Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin – all of which saw their bans fall in both federal district and appeals courts. The move immediately legalizes marriage equality in those five states, and will soon topple bans in six other states that make up the 4th, 7th, and 10th circuits. Those states include Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming, bringing the total number of states where gay and lesbian couples can wed from 19 plus the District of Columbia to 30 – more than half the nation.

With a ruling expected sometime this fall, all eyes turn to the Sixth Circuit, where it is hard to imagine the court rejecting Full Faith and Credit.

SCOTUSblog checked in with the summary reflecting the sentiments coloring the headlines:

Practically, today SCOTUS recognized a right to SSM. Implausible that later it will undo marriages, absent a big change in Ct’s membership.

And so it goes. For now.

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Margolin, Emma. “Five signs the Supreme Court will take up gay marriage”. msnbc. 29 September 2014.

—————. “Marriage equality comes to five more states”. msnbc. 6 October 2014.

SCOTUSblog. “Practically, today SCOTUS recognized a right to SSM”. Twitter. 6 October 2014.

The Picture: Marriage Equality Mix

“The rough idea would be that the Roberts court would be to the rights of gays and lesbians what the Warren court was on race issues.”

―David A. Strauss

There is a lot going on. Or maybe not. Where once the idea was that courts should stay out of things and let “democracy” pick and choose who gets what human and constitutional rights in the United States, many of those advocates are looking to the Supreme Court of the United States to cram the gays back into the closet. With Justice Ginsburg suggesting last month that the Supreme Court might get involved if the lower courts make a sufficient mess of things, and the Fifteenth Judicial District Court of Louisiana holding the line in terms of state courts, one might wonder about the fervor Robert Barnes noted last week for the Washington Post:

The 10th edition of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. begins work Monday with the prospect of a monumental ruling for gay rights that could serve as a surprising legacy of an otherwise increasingly conservative court.

Whether the justices will decide that the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry dominates expectations of the coming term; such a ruling would impart landmark status on a docket that so far lacks a blockbuster case.

And some say it would be a defining moment for a closely divided court that bears the chief justice’s name but is most heavily influenced by the justice in the middle: Anthony M. Kennedy, who has written the court’s most important decisions affording protection to gay Americans.

“If the court establishes a right to same-sex marriage . . . [it] will go down in history as one that was on the frontiers of establishing rights for gays and lesbians,” said David A. Strauss, a constitutional-law scholar at the University of Chicago.

“The rough idea would be that the Roberts court would be to the rights of gays and lesbians what the Warren court was on race issues.”

Something about blockbusters, to be certain; one would hope we have enough worked out about our society that we should not necessarily be rushing for a marquée show every year. That is to say, there is plenty wrong with society, but do we really have so many fundamental civil rights questions coming to the fore? And if so, well, what the hell is wrong with Americans that we have not yet figured out how some of these very basic concepts work?

A Toxic Troika? A Note on ‘Optics’ and ‘Metrics’

When studying the Castor and Pollux of politics and punditry it might help to bear in mind that many of the buzzwords are intended to sound quasi-scientific in order to hide the fact that the terms describe artistic results. A metric, for instance, is simply an abstract measurement in unknown units compared to a presupposed psychomoral idyll that may or may not be available for examination and should never be trusted in the first place, anyway. The metrics of a situation are whatever the pundit wishes to describe in order to make his or her own narrative sound that much more compelling.

But then there are the optics of a situation, and this is a fairly easy explanation. Political optics are, quite literally, nothing more than appearances within a frame described by a pundit’s metrics.

In one of his first public appearances of the 2014 campaign, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida had a vivid preview Wednesday of the challenges he would face with his party’s conservative base should he seek the Republican nomination for president in 2016.

Standing alongside Thom Tillis, the North Carolina House speaker and Republican Senate candidate, Mr. Bush outlined his views on two of the issues he cares most passionately about: immigration policy and education standards. But as Mr. Bush made the case for an immigration overhaul and the Common Core standards, Mr. Tillis gently put distance between himself and his guest of honor, who had flown here from Florida on a dreary day to offer his endorsement in a race that could decide which party controls the Senate.

(Martin)

Ah, optics!

One of the Most Fascinating Political Questions of the Year

“Despite my deep respect and admiration for Ginsburg and her inspiring career, I find her approach extraordinarily reckless. For all of our sakes, here’s hoping her gamble pays off.”

―Steve Benen

And as much as we all at This Is adore Mr. Benen’s insightful analyses, we do indeed disagree on occasion. And in the matter of whether or not Justice Ginsburg should retire, a simple question asserts itself: Do we trust Justice Ginsburg?

Benen’s overview is sufficient, let there be no doubt. And, to be certain, it is fair to point out that Ginsburg’s political calculations are not without risk. Furthermore, of course we all, as such, hope the gamble pays off. But in a time so uncertain as to cloud the prognostications of conventional wisdom, it also pays well to remember that not all things are equal. On paper, sure, the analysis suggesting Ginsburg is taking too big a risk by her political calculation is at least arguable. But what of the human terms? The variables resolve with diverse values, and in that, quite frankly, it is not a matter of who does one trust, Mr. Benen or Justice Ginsburg. The question to consider is whether or not one trusts Justice Ginsburg.

If her calculation is so dangerously awry, she ought not be on the Court in the first place. Those of us who not only appreciate her presence on the Court but also recognize the magnitude of what kindness history will speak of her tenure have every reason to trust Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In a way, it does help to point out: Remember, she’s the one throwing down. And before anyone stutters about Scalia or Alito or whoever, that is beside the point. Ginsburg recently let the lower courts know what was on the minds of the Supremes and while Justice Scalia was in Texas explaining why the perspectives of self-centered supremacist bigots from the eighteenth century should describe the twenty-first, Ginsburg explained to law students in Minnesota that the nation’s ranking court would not get involved in the growing noise and bluster over same-sex marriage unless lower courts botch it all up.

A Note on Narrative and Context: Life and Death Edition

“I feel very, very sorry for them and I’m glad to know they’re out. At least the process worked, it just took too long.”

―State Rep. Thom Tillis (R-NC98)

Context … is … everything.

At first blush, North Carolina State Speaker of the House Thom Tillis seems to have the right answer, politically speaking, to the inherent question of just what happened the now-infamous case of Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown. Mr. McCollum spent thirty years on death row, and his half-brother Leon Brown the same period under a life sentence; as the fact of their innocence echoes from sea to shining sea, the tragic tale is also boosted into the realm of the political circus, courtesy the one and only Justice Scalia:

The exoneration ends decades of legal and political battles over a case that became notorious in North Carolina and received nationwide discussion, vividly reflecting the country’s fractured views of the death penalty.

The two young defendants were prosecuted by Joe Freeman Britt, the 6-foot-6, Bible-quoting district attorney who was later profiled by “60 Minutes” as the country’s “deadliest D.A.” because he sought the death penalty so often.

For death penalty supporters, the horrifying facts of the girl’s rape and murder only emphasized the justice of applying the ultimate penalty. As recently as 2010, the North Carolina Republican Party put Mr. McCollum’s booking photograph on campaign fliers that accused a Democratic candidate of being soft on crime, according to The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C.

In 1994, when the United States Supreme Court turned down a request to review the case, Justice Antonin Scalia described Mr. McCollum’s crime as so heinous that it would be hard to argue against lethal injection. But Justice Harry A. Blackmun, in a dissent, noted that Mr. McCollum had the mental age of a 9-year-old and that “this factor alone persuades me that the death penalty in this case is unconstitutional.”

It was a spectacular line Scalia uttered; far beneath the dignity of any court in this fair land. Jonathan M. Katz and Erik Eckholm were kind enough to omit it from their New York Times article describing this week’s acquittal of McCollum and Brown, but still manage to make the point, anyway. This was just one of those cases, and in his own, inimitable way, Justice Scalia may well, by the fact of these acquittals, see what was merely crass and inflammatory rhetoric transformed into an icon of his shameful tenure on the Nation’s Highest Court.

But, yes, at first glance, it might seem Tillis has said exactly the right thing. The Devil, of course, is in the details:

Now middle aged, the two brothers have been in prison — one of them on death row — since they were teenagers, wrongfully accused of raping and murdering a child. When ThinkProgress asked Tillis if anything needs to change in light of this case, he said that because they were eventually exonerated, “It’s an example of how we have protections in our judicial system in North Carolina.”

“I feel very, very sorry for them and I’m glad to know they’re out,” he said. “At least the process worked, it just took too long.”

(Ollstein)

It’s called WYWA. The point is to answer the question you Wish You Were Asked. This is, of course, standard fare, and as much as it might annoy us, it is also true that voters respond affirmatively; if you cannot answer WYWA, you do not stand a chance.

But in this case, Tillis’ answer would seem to leave a certain issue unresolved. If the question is if anything needs to be changed, and the answer is that at least the system worked and an example of how we have protections, then what about how it just took too long?

The Unfortunate State of Things

Jen Sorensen undertook the obvious point in the wake of the Supreme Court’s quixotic disaster otherwise known as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. And, yes, she wins the race on style.

Still, though, a question arises. To the one, we are Americans, and everyone knows just how undignified it would be if people actually acted like those depicted in the cartoon. To the other, we are Americans, and everyone knows just how undignified it is to behave that way unless one is a patriot using a gun to menace locals in the name of the Second Amendment, or shouting at, threatening, and assaulting women.

The truth is that no matter how much Justice Scalia might need to be tomatosmacked upside the head, it would be inappropriate to actually start chucking table vegetables.

Meanwhile, the question arises, looms, persists: Then what does it take?

The explanation for this is simple enough under a general psychoanalysis of history: We judge women’s humanity as a reflection of manhood.