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February 1, 2010
Transcript Of An Interview With The Five Conservative Justices
About The Recent Corporate Free Speech Case.
Your reporter recently was fortunate enough to be granted an interview by five Justices of the Supreme Court, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The subject of the interview was the Court's recent decision granting corporations the same free speech rights as human people. The interview was held in a secret chamber in the Court's basement, where the conservative justices keep casks of amontillado. Justices Kennedy and Roberts did most of the talking for the conservatives, with occasional interjections from others.
It seemed to me that the best way to give the reader the full flavor of what these eminent jurists had to say would be to publish large sections of the transcript. Each Justice is identified by his initials in the transcript: AK (Anthony Kennedy), JR (John Roberts), AS (Antonin Scalia), CT (Clarence Thomas) and SA (Samuel Alito). Your reporter is identified by the initials YR (which does not stand for Young Republicans).
YR: "Good morning Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas and Alito.
Let me say first that I am most grateful for your willingness to sit for an interview about a particular case, which is never done by individual Justices, let alone a collective group of Justices. So I deeply appreciate your willingness to do this.
JR: No problem. We know you will play it straight down the right. So we know you will be fair.
May I offer you some amontillado?
YR: No thanks.
Justice Roberts, the dissent said your group of five were striking a blow against democracy. President Obama said, and I quote, "This ruling strikes at our democracy itself . . . . I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections." So your group of five is charged with attacking democracy. Do you have a response?
JR: May I offer you some amontillado?
YR: No.
JR: You're darn right we struck a blow against democracy. We think important decisions having a big effect on the country should be made by the five of us, not the louts who are elected to Congress or the Executive. We particularly think we should be the ones to elect the President. Four of us and the sainted Justice O'Connor elected George Bush and nothing bad resulted from that, did it? That guy Obama is lucky there were no hanging chads in 2008 or John McCain would be the President.
May I offer you some amontillado?
AK: My decision is a victory for free speech. In the first place, our freedom of speech prevailed, so the decision is a victory for free speech. Then too, I don't know whether you read that rag the New York Times and read the article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the January 24th issue. She really knows what's up with the Supreme Court since she so rarely writes about it. And she said "The ruling was expected to unleash a torrent of attack advertisements in the coming midterm election." Good. That is a victory for free speech too. BANZAI!!!!
