Supreme Courtin'

So last week, we were supposed to go see an oral argument.  To do this, we were supposed to be at the steps of the Supreme Court by 6AM to line up.  My idiot ass cannot get out of bed, and thus I missed this incredible experience in favor of two extra hours of sleep (this is the second time I've done that this semester, the first being this breakfast at the Department of Labor where I could've met Secretary Hilda Solis, except I'm an idiot).

BUT. There was vague vague redemption.  Our class met Justice Alito.  He was weird.

The Supreme Court building is amazing, easily the most impressive building in DC (which is, if you haven't noticed, comprised almost entirely of impressive buildings).  It has a huge patio area, huge grand staircase leading up to this HUGE column front.  Across the top, it reads "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW" in huge block letters. Also, according to Asst. to the Solicitor General Melissa Arbus-Sherry (Tufts/WSP grad...she gave oral argument the day we were supposed to watch it, and when she came to speak to us, our Professor cried when he told her how proud he was to see her argue in front of Supreme Court) there is actually for real a basketball court inside the Supreme Court.  New life goal: play on this court.  Whether that means working in Supreme Court in some respect or breaking in at night. Hopefully the more legal of those two options.

Terrible cell phone shot.

Anyway, Justice Samuel Alito, appointed in in 2006 following the departure of Sandra Day O'Connor, is described on Wikipedia as "a conservative judge with a libertarian streak." Honestly, he's a brilliant guy (as much as conservatives can be brilliant), but he had the social skills of Mark Zuckerberg during The Social Network.  Or this guy:

The problem with this photo is that you expect that this nerdy boy is the kind of guy who will want to jizz his intelligence all over you by continually inundating you with obscure knowledge about things you probably don't care about. Alito is probably what this boy looks like after 40 years of being picked on, avoiding eye contact and only speaking about the things he finds most interesting unless you ask him a really specific question.  You ask him what he thinks about the declining number of cases being taken by Supreme Court, he says "uh, I don't really know why, but I don't think we could do any more than that."  Ask him about his opinion in the Doe v. Groody case, and he'll go on for twenty years about why he chose to rule on a Fourth Amendment basis, as opposed to Clarence Thomas choosing the same ruling a different way. 

Anyway, he spoke and answered questions for maybe 20 minutes. Here's our class photo with him:

WSP plus Alito (in the middle)

Also, my friend Jane from class told me later that as we were walking into the Lawyer's Lounge, where we sat with Alito, she saw Justice Kagan stroll on by.  No posse, just the lady herself.  Nobody noticed.  This morning, when I woke up at 5AM (because my roommate was leaving for New York and dried her hair with the lights on forever), I read her whole Wikipedia article. She's a badass.  I wish she were more a little more liberal.  Jane says it's "disgusting that she hasn't come out yet."  I wish she would come out too, but maybe she just really isn't gay.

But I mean, come on, she probably is.

Also, this morning, read all of Sonia Sotomayor's Wikipedia article.  Just saying, they spent a lot more time proving that Justice Sotomayor was smart in this entry than they did in Justice Kagan's.  They both went to Princeton and graduated summa cum laude, but there's mad detail about Sotomayor.  They even told us she was valedictorian of her elementary school class.  Come on now. But also, in general, Sotomayor's is way longer, which is potentially just because she was way more in the public eye.