No Conversing Necessary

Today, as expected, the U.S. Supreme Court bench-slapped the Montana Supreme Court by summarily reversing— without briefing or argument—the lower court's decision to uphold Montana's restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations. The Court, in a per curiam opinion, found that there was "no serious doubt" that the holding of Citizens United applied to the case, and the Montana law was therefore clearly unconsitutional.  

Devoted reader(s) of the blog may recall our five-part Gillette-Torvik Conversation™ on this topic. We obviously spent a lot more time conversing about this case than the Supreme Court did.

UPDATE:

Prof. Rick Hasen has this interesting observation:

More on Montana and Citizens United

Earlier this year, Mr. Torvik and I had a Conversation™ about how the Montana Supreme Court stuck its thumb in the eye of the United States Supreme Court regarding the Citizens United decision.  It turns out that the Western Tradition Partnership, Inc., v. Attorney General case was just the the beginning of Montana's attack on the decision.

Did Willie Nelson start Judge Cebull's infamous joke?

One of the thoughts that has been going through my mind about Judge Cebull's infamous Obama joke is, "I bet that is a really old joke."

There has been a lot of discussion about the racism and misogyny inherent in the joke. All that analysis is true. It's racist and misogynistic. But that misses the point. The point is that it's dirty and tasteless.

When I was a kid I had a trove of treasured joke books from a series called, "Truly Tasteless Jokes." The aim of the punch lines is to make you wince. The more you wince, the more you laugh. That's the point.

Anyhow I wanted to see if I could prove that Judge Cebull's joke was an old one. So I did a search for the punchline ("you're lucky you don't bark") in Google, with a custom date range from 2000 - 2010.

The second result was a 2009 interview of Willie Nelson in Vanity Fair. Here's relevant part (with the interviewer's questions in bold:

You wrote a book called The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes. What's the dirtiest joke you've ever heard? 

Hmm. (Long pause.) See, my idea of a really great dirty joke isn't something you can share with everybody. You gotta watch yourself. 

Come on, you can tell us. We won't judge you. 

Well, one of my favorites goes something like this…. A kid asks his mama, "How come you're white and I'm black?" And she says, "Honey, from what I can remember of the party, you're lucky you don't bark." 

(Laughs.) Wow. That is good. But you're right, probably not for everybody. 

You gotta be careful. Not everybody can appreciate a funny goddamn joke.

 Bingo.

Judge Cebull apologizes to President Obama.

Yesterday we posted about Judge Cebull's stupendous error in judgment when he used his official email to forward a racist and misogynist email about President Obama's mother. We updated the post to reflect that Judge Cebull has requested that the Ninth Circuit investigate his actions. The Ninth Circuit has posted Judge Cebull's request here.

Judge Cebull has also written a letter of apology to President Obama. It is here. The text of the apology is:

I sincerely and profusely apologize to you and your family for the email I forwarded. I accept full responsibility; I have no one to blame but myself.

I can assure you that such action on my part will never happen again. I have requested that the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit review this matter.

Honestly, I don't know what else I can do. Please forgive me and, again, my most sincere apology.

Dear Reader(s), Judge Cebull's apology is how one gives an actual apology. Note the lack of sentences like "I am sorry if my email offended anyone." Judge Cebull also didn't try to say that we was sorry "to the extent anyone misconstrued my intent or was otherwise offended." Judge Cebull does not try to make it seem like it is the fault of someone else if they were offended by the email. Instead, he explicitly recognizes that he has "no one to blame" but himself and, most importantly, he asks for forgiveness.

Obviously, I don't know if President Obama will respond to this request for forgiveness. I hope he does and I hope his response is, "I forgive you."

UPDATE: In the event that Mr. Torvik doesn't use this post as opporunity to attempt to humilate me, Ellie Mystal of "Above the Law" disagrees about the effectiveness of the apology.

Wow. Just. Wow.

UPDATE: The Associated Press Reports that Judge Cebull has asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Nineth Circuit to investigate whether he engaged in judicial misconduct by sending the email.

ORIGINAL POST:

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the beautiful things about being alive is the chance to learn something new every day. Today, for example, I learned that United States District Court Judge for the District of Montana Richard Cebull doesn't like President Obama or the president's dead mother and likes to use his work email to discuss these topics with his friends.