‘American’ Clowns: Credibility and the Legal Profession

 

This week brought back memories of when that most notorious – and laughably shallow – “constitutional scholar” nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court: Remarks by the President Announcing Judge Merrick Garland as his Nominee to the Supreme Court

As customary, august bodies of great credibility put that status on the line:

The American Bar Association Gives Its Highest Rating to Chief Judge Garland

Summary: Today, the American Bar Association gave its highest possible rating to Chief Judge Merrick Garland, assessing him as unanimously well-qualified.

Today, the American Bar Association (ABA) completed its months-long evaluation of Chief Judge Merrick Garland’s professional qualifications and assessed him as unanimously “Well Qualified”—its highest possible rating.

The ABA is one of the largest and most respected nonpartisan legal organizations in the country. With today’s statement, the ABA joins a multitude of respected public leaders and legal experts from across the political spectrum who agree that Chief Judge Garland has a record of judicial excellence and should serve on the Supreme Court. …

Even better, much bloviating praise for the record. Samples:

“Judge Garland is a person of highest integrity…”

“You cannot find anyone with greater personal integrity or anyone more dedicated to public service.”

“He does not have an agenda. He follows the law. He applies the law to the facts.”

“…the utmost integrity, and is a totally scrupulous, …”

“… He is a perfectionist in his written work.”

Well, to quote the honorable Colonel Sherman T. Potter: “Horse-hockey!”

That charade is now over:

Merrick Garland has proved himself unfit for Supreme Court — but he shouldn’t be AG either

… Garland’s consolation prize: becoming President Joe Biden’s attorney general. Yet in nine short months, he’s proved not only unfit to sit on the court but unfit to serve as attorney general. Indeed, his behavior suggests he’s not qualified for any federal position.

I’ll go further, he is a despicable human being and deserves the tar and feathers that just may catch up to him someday. Others had strong words for this petty, little man:

EXHIBIT A

https://youtu.be/vXDWroXTBwc

EXHIBIT B

POWERLINE: “I will hazard a guess that Garland’s tenure as Attorney General will not be a long one.”

https://youtu.be/3jILwhennws

EXHIBIT C

https://youtu.be/Do2wKQT2qOs

There is little doubt the AG Merrick Garland is an anti-liberty progressive tool unfit to serve in a government of and for a free people. Those who have, in the past, put their credibility on the line for this ignoble twit should not be afforded any credibility in the future. Those who continue to stand by the current AG from this point forward should be considered fellow travelers with the anti-liberty progressive forces now in overdrive to extinguish that vital American Spirit.

Good day.

Published in General
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 35 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Victor Tango Kilo Member
    Victor Tango Kilo
    @VtheK

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy. 

    • #1
  2. EDISONPARKS Member
    EDISONPARKS
    @user_54742

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

    Ouch!

    I like McCarthy, but that tweet is going to leave a serious welt on Andy’s prognostication credibility.

    • #2
  3. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    Having been a professional clown, and being in near constant contact with people who actually work as clowns, I find your headline offensive. 

    Otherwise, great post!

    • #3
  4. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Franco (View Comment):

    Having been a professional clown, and being in near constant contact with people who actually work as clowns, I find your headline offensive.

    Otherwise, great post!

    No offense intended…please read as the “a foolish or incompetent person” definition as opposed to the more common “a comic entertainer, especially one in a circus, wearing a traditional costume and exaggerated makeup.” I harbor no ill will towards those who are intentionally comic and entertaining.

    Of course, you will likely be offended when I become President and order my Ambassador to the UN to wear a Bozo The Clown costume whenever he is on official business. I apologize in advance…but it must be done.

    • #4
  5. Old Bathos Moderator
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    He is just weak.  Washington is full of people who get rolled by underlings who do their work for them and by noisemakers.

    In a better moral and intellectual climate he would probably be a lot better performer.  The Biden Climate (morally and intellectually) is having a profound effect.  

    “Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” -Dean Vernon Werner

    Imagine Delta House without the wit, humor or the fun–just the mindless destruction and stupidity with an ideological overlay.

     

    • #5
  6. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

    A couple of points.  First, it strains credulity for you to claim that Andrew McCarthy is a NeverTrumper, unless you believe that every single person who has ever had a disagreement with Trump is a NeverTrumper.

    Second, this tweet is from January 6, 2021.  After we lost both [Edit.Georgia] Senate seats after Trump’s sabotage on January 5, 2021, Biden nominated Merrick Garland the next day.  Do you have more recent tweets from Andrew McCarthy?

    • #6
  7. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

    McCarthy was the last person I read NRO for.  That ended a few years ago.

    • #7
  8. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Franco (View Comment):

    Having been a professional clown, and being in near constant contact with people who actually work as clowns, I find your headline offensive.

    Otherwise, great post!

    Oaf, he mutters.

    • #8
  9. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Garland is way out of his league. Maybe there was somewhere he was effective. And since when is the ABA “non-partisan”?

    • #9
  10. Nohaaj Coolidge
    Nohaaj
    @Nohaaj

    philo: [POWELINE:] “I will hazard a guess that Garland’s tenure as Attorney General will not be a long one.”

    Has any incompetent, corrupted Xiden appointee yet resigned?  I don’t recall any.  Republicans resign, and are replaced.  Democrats fail up farther.  I hazard a guess that Garland will stay, as will Milley, et al. 

    • #10
  11. EDISONPARKS Member
    EDISONPARKS
    @user_54742

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

     

    A couple of points. First, it strains credulity for you to claim that Andrew McCarthy is a NeverTrumper, unless you believe that every single person who has ever had a disagreement with Trump is a NeverTrumper.

    Second, this tweet is from January 6, 2021. After we lost both Virginia Senate seats after Trump’s sabotage on January 5, 2021, Biden nominated Merrick Garland the next day. Do you have more recent tweets from Andrew McCarthy?

    McCarthy does have an awkward tic where he will publicly back the integrity of his former DOJ colleagues right up to the point where McCarthy is proven 180 degrees wrong and has to embarrassingly back track on all the nice things he said before.

    • #11
  12. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    philo: nonpartisan legal organizations

    Ha, ha, ha.

    Sorry, philo.  I didn’t mean to imply that this was your statement.

    • #12
  13. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    After we lost both Virginia Senate seats after Trump’s sabotage on January 5, 2021, Biden nominated Merrick Garland the next day.  Do you have more recent tweets from Andrew McCarthy?

    I assume you meant Georgia.  I realize that the whole east coast looks the same from out west.

    • #13
  14. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Ted Cruz for President!

    • #14
  15. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Keeping this jerk off the Supreme Court may prove to be Mitch McConnell’s most important achievement.  (Lord knows, he hasn’t had many.)

    • #15
  16. Old Bathos Moderator
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):
    McCarthy does have an awkward tic where he will publicly back the integrity of his former DOJ colleagues right up to the point where McCarthy is proven 180 degrees wrong and has to embarrassingly back track on all the nice things he said before.

    A lot of former government lawyers and officials cannot believe the extent of the rot. 

    The first line of moral defense is always one’s peers.  Professionalism, integrity etc are mostly enforced by reputation.  That matters less in some places than it once did.

    Once the caricature of Trumpian evil became a justification for partisan hackery, the existing moral vacuity in the ranks was exposed and the abuse of power was quickly pervasive. Like the perversion of journalistic integrity, if it serves the cause it must be just.  The more the rot, the more the demonization of “the enemy.” 

    If the parents of Louden County schoolkids are not vile ignorant savages, then lying to them and spitting on their sensibilities and values, and breaching legal duties would not be justified, therefore they must be caricatured, silenced, and punished.  Trump supporters must be insurrectionists and enemies of the state to justify the abuses of office underway.  The libs need to hate us because they can’t deal with how far they have sunk. 

    It’s a small version of the same moral inertia the Nazis experienced–once you start something evil, the farther it goes the more you need to persist so to keep from having to accept the moral reality of it.

    • #16
  17. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    Although the ABA criteria for judges would not necessarily work to  ferret out a bad AG, I would not expect the ABA to do so one way or the other.  It’s just another of many professional organizations dominated by the left.

    • #17
  18. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

    A couple of points. First, it strains credulity for you to claim that Andrew McCarthy is a NeverTrumper, unless you believe that every single person who has ever had a disagreement with Trump is a NeverTrumper.

    Second, this tweet is from January 6, 2021. After we lost both Virginia Senate seats after Trump’s sabotage on January 5, 2021, Biden nominated Merrick Garland the next day. Do you have more recent tweets from Andrew McCarthy?

    McCarthy is not favorably disposed to Trump, but Ball of Collusion is a pretty fair book.  I have no idea what sabotage means, and it wasn’t Virginia.  Bad candidates lost Georgia.

    • #18
  19. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    Second, this tweet is from January 6, 2021.  After we lost both Virginia Senate seats after Trump’s sabotage on January 5, 2021, Biden nominated Merrick Garland the next day.  Do you have more recent tweets from Andrew McCarthy?

    Say what?

    • #19
  20. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    NOTICE: This Member post has been promoted to the Main Feed. Content may have been edited / corrected from the original without attribution by Ricochet.

    QUESTION: Why did the videos need to be turned into links? 

    (Somewhere along the line it seems we – or I – stopped getting notifications about promotions. For what it’s worth, that is/was an important feature to at least one of us.)

     

    • #20
  21. Duane Oyen Member
    Duane Oyen
    @DuaneOyen

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

    FYI, Andy McCarthy voted for Trump.

    And, at the time, Garland seemed, based on his history, to be the least bad choice Biden could have made out of the alternatives.  Unfortunately, he is like Mueller- in his dotage, a figurehead being jerked around by his underlings (Clarke and Gupta) and lacks the guts to act.  He clearly should resign after the NSB “domestic terrorism” memo.  Tom Cotton is right, but in early January Garland looked less like Eric Holder than the other candidates.

    • #21
  22. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Edited to see that Gary did correct the state.

    As a Georgian though, the error is still insulting. I don’t mix up AZ with NM for instance.

    • #22
  23. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

    A couple of points. First, it strains credulity for you to claim that Andrew McCarthy is a NeverTrumper, unless you believe that every single person who has ever had a disagreement with Trump is a NeverTrumper.

    Second, this tweet is from January 6, 2021. After we lost both Virginia Senate seats after Trump’s sabotage on January 5, 2021, Biden nominated Merrick Garland the next day. Do you have more recent tweets from Andrew McCarthy?

    McCarthy is not favorably disposed to Trump, but Ball of Collusion is a pretty fair book. I have no idea what sabotage means, and it wasn’t Virginia. Bad candidates lost Georgia.

    Indeed. Many conservatives did not like the pick to replace Isakson when it happened.

    • #23
  24. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Hoyacon (View Comment):  I have no idea what sabotage means…

    He doesn’t either. 

    • #24
  25. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    philo (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment): I have no idea what sabotage means…

    He doesn’t either.

    I thought it meant throwing a wooden shoe into the works.

    • #25
  26. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

     

    Ouch!

    I like McCarthy, but that tweet is going to leave a serious welt on Andy’s prognostication credibility.

    Andy’s prognostication credibility has been in the toilet for some time already.  He’s repeatedly “shocked” by the misbehavior of the DOJ etc and then goes right back to holding them in high regard.  At some point maybe the dictionary entry for Gell-Mann Amnesia will have his photo.  Or maybe Peter Robinson’s, but McCarthy has less of an excuse.

    • #26
  27. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Victor Tango Kilo (View Comment):

    NRO Never Trumper Andrew McCarthy was a big Merrick Garland fanboy.

     

    A couple of points. First, it strains credulity for you to claim that Andrew McCarthy is a NeverTrumper, unless you believe that every single person who has ever had a disagreement with Trump is a NeverTrumper.

    Second, this tweet is from January 6, 2021. After we lost both Virginia Senate seats after Trump’s sabotage on January 5, 2021, Biden nominated Merrick Garland the next day. Do you have more recent tweets from Andrew McCarthy?

    McCarthy does have an awkward tic where he will publicly back the integrity of his former DOJ colleagues right up to the point where McCarthy is proven 180 degrees wrong and has to embarrassingly back track on all the nice things he said before.

    And then he goes right back to full-throated support again, until the next time he is “shocked” by what they do.

    • #27
  28. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    There is a detailed post in the Member Feed which addresses Andrew McCarthy long history of being an excellent journalist.

    https://ricochet.com/1083370/in-defense-of-andy-mccarthy-2/

    • #28
  29. EDISONPARKS Member
    EDISONPARKS
    @user_54742

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    There is a detailed post in the Member Feed which addresses Andrew McCarthy long history of being an excellent journalist.

    https://ricochet.com/1083370/in-defense-of-andy-mccarthy-2/

    I like McCarthy but his willful blindness about the politicized corruption in the DOJ makes Andy look silly.

    • #29
  30. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    There is a detailed post in the Member Feed which addresses Andrew McCarthy long history of being an excellent journalist.

    https://ricochet.com/1083370/in-defense-of-andy-mccarthy-2/

    I like McCarthy but his willful blindness about the politicized corruption in the DOJ makes Andy look silly.

    Yeah

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.