September 15, 2015

Stephen Colbert's opening question to Justice Breyer: "What's it like to be a Supreme Court Justice? Is it a good job?"



Breyer's answer is that it's a great benefit — especially as you get older — to have a job that requires you to do your best "every single minute." That gets a huge cheer from the audience. (I know there's an "applause" sign, but still...)

Question 2 is great: "Lifetime appointment! Would you recommend that for everyone?" Breyer laughs and just quotes his father as having advised: "Stay on the payroll."

Question 3 is whether he ever asks himself, "Why me? Why do I get to be one of the 9 people to make the call here?" The answer is "of course," and in the first few years, you may look confident, but it takes "a period of time" to feel confident. Justice Souter told him that, and Justice Douglas told Justice Souter that. (Note: Souter and Douglas did not overlap on the Supreme Court.)

Breyer has a book to flog. "The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities." Colbert whips that out, but the next question isn't about that topic. It's: How come no cameras in the Supreme Court room? If there were cameras in the courtroom, Colbert says, you could just put the book on the edge of "your desk"— he demonstrates with the book — "And you wouldn't have to be here right now, shaking your lawmaker." From the next room Meade says that he's not a "lawmaker," and I'm trying to get this post written, so I resist veering into a real-life conversation about how some people think the Court is making law and not, as propriety supposedly demands, merely finding the law.

Breyer gets very somber and says: "I'm in a job where we wear black robes in part because we're speaking for the law." And Colbert says: "And in part to make you spooky." I found that very funny. It was an interruption of Breyer's thought, which continued with the statement that everyone knows the judges are individual human beings, but they want to look like they embody the law and not their own personal preferences.

I can think of a few wisecracks that could be interposed there, but Colbert lets him run out his thought: Cameras would change that in ways that can't be predicted. It's better for judges to affect people through the written opinions, he says. Once people are seeing the lawyers and judges, their minds work in a different way, a way that's less related to what law is and more emotional.

Next, Colbert asks a question that gets a big cheer from the audience: How come the Supreme Court Justices, unlike the rest of the federal government, get along and sit around together amiably, even though they disagree on the issues? Not answering the question, Breyer says he's never heard a voice raised in anger or a personal insult — "not even as a joke." Breyer gets so adamant that Colbert says: "You're yelling at me right now." Breyer considers speaking but decides just to laugh, and Colbert seizes the opportunity by extending his hand for the final thanks-for-the-interview handshake.

A nice little interview. Great questions and reactions from Colbert. Standard Justice Breyer presentation that I'm familiar with that, I suspect, will be pleasing and encouraging for the Colbert audience. No pesky explanation of the subject of the book — arguing that American courts should take the law of foreign countries into account.

29 comments:

Curious George said...

"about how some people think the Court is making law and not, as propriety supposedly demands, merely finding the law."

And some of those people are on the court.

Wince said...

Has Colbert differentiated himself from the obnoxious blow-hard he supposedly played on his old show?

Ideological slant aside, I saw nothing different in that interview.

Ugh, and another lefty clapping seal audience.

tim maguire said...

Nice little interview...not a drop of substances, no insight into the role of the justice, apparently not even a correction of the mis-statement that judges are lawmakers, but still, a nice little interview.

tim maguire said...

"...not a drop of substance..." (Freudian slip? You be the judge!)

Ignorance is Bliss said...
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Ignorance is Bliss said...


Once people are seeing the lawyers and judges, their minds work in a different way, a way that's less related to what law is and more emotional.

Sounds like a good argument for ending oral arguments. Let them rule on the briefs, and post questions in writing, with plenty of time for a response. The idea that a case which sets a precedent for the entire country should be decided based on whose lawyer can think faster on their feet is insane.

Justice Thomas has it right. Again.

rehajm said...

Does Beyer wish us to consider the aggregate of international laws or only those international laws consistent with his political philosophies?

Pretty sure we already know how Kagan feels.

rhhardin said...

Global interdepennce calls for more meddling, if you're a meddling kind of judge.

rhhardin said...

Balance requires half the court be morons. Diversity is our strength.

Unknown said...

Allah says sharia must come to america. Because

rhhardin said...

If the law believes that, the law is an ass.

Yet there is no statue.

Sebastian said...

"it takes "a period of time" to feel confident"

Right, that's been Progs' problem, they just lacked confidence.

"they want to look like they embody the law and not their own personal preferences"

I found that very funny.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...


Lifetime appointment is as insane for SCOTUS as it is for pope.

Practically guarantees significant mischief as senility develops.

Bay Area Guy said...

Mediocre lawyer meets mediocre talk-show host - both agree on mediocre world view, enjoy their chit-chat.

BN said...

Without those robes on, we'd get the naked truth: the law is an ass.

These philosopher kings are just politicians in different clothes anyway. Who do they think they're fooling?

traditionalguy said...
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traditionalguy said...

A Philosopher King's work is never done. They have to tear down so many legal boundaries that once made life safe for all of us dull sluggards...all done for New Mankind's benefit so a new boundary can be erected by the winners who were not murdered and robbed by the forces set loose by these Justice Idealists.

Life as a cartoon.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

"Shaking your lawmaker"? Odd. I've never heard it called that before.

Bob Ellison said...

"Trust me," Breyer said.

Michael said...

The Justices can sit around amiably precisely because there are no cameras. I don't doubt that Ted Cruz and Chuck Schumer can be amiable together in private. For better or worse.

Quaestor said...

Breyer should be impeached for bad taste.

SeanF said...

Michelle Dulak Thomson: "Shaking your lawmaker"? Odd. I've never heard it called that before.

The common expression is "shake your moneymaker," but Colbert said "lawmaker" because Breyer's, you know, a lawyer.

Meade's criticism of the joke was too much, too. It was just a silly pun.

damikesc said...

Colbert cannot interview anybody to save his life. Color me stunned.

Alexander said...

Once people are seeing the lawyers and judges, their minds work in a different way, a way that's less related to what law is and more emotional.

Once upon a time. I find it hard to believe we could increase the rule of emotions that currently passes for the American legal system.

eddie willers said...

the law is an ass.

I hate to be anal about this, but the correct quote is: The law is A ass.

It comes from Dickens's Oliver Twist:

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass — a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.”

Mick said...

This senile old F#*! is the poster boy for term limits on the SCOTUS.

Titus said...

Breyer is a Cambridge Jew-his house is 5 blocks away from me and 4 blocks away from Elizabeth Warren and two blocks from Julia Child-another commie.

Cambridge.

tits.

Saint Croix said...

I think one of the problems with the Supreme Court is that they are too congenial.

Think about slave-owners and abolitionists sitting on the Supreme Court together.

Or think about a pro-lifer sitting right next to Breyer as he describes, in graphic detail, the right to stab a baby in the middle of birth.

Might be worth a "civility bullshit" tag.

The point of civility, of all the hand-shaking and back-slapping and going on hunting trips together, is so they are a nice little happy club of Supreme Court Justices. "Let's all be friends!" And of course it's mean to suggest that maybe you should not be on such happy terms with the slave-owner, or the baby-killer. This niceness, this desire to be happy and pleasant, can be a kind of corruption.

Terrence Berres said...

"Supreme Court Justices wore scarlet or ermine (fur) robes in keeping with the English tradition. Chief Justice John Marshall declared that 'black was the new red' during his swearing in ceremony in 1801. Marshall did not actually say those words but by simply foregoing the scarlet robe that was traditionally worn by Supreme Court Justices, he changed the dress code.[footnote omitted] Marshall was quite the trendsetter, because judges in the United States have been wearing black ever since." Meghan Collins, 'Why Do Judges Wear Black Robes?' Juris: The Duquesne Law School Magazine, 24 October 2013
http://jurismagazine.com/why-do-judges-wear-black-robes/