How about “Justice Scalia was a brilliant legal scholar, and a raging asshole. We extend our deepest condolences to his family in their time of loss, and to this country, which continues to suffer under the horrible legacy of his many amoral and downright evil decisions.”.
1 Like
There’s nothing mutually exclusive about being brilliant and being a sociopath, and it takes sheer genius to know what the majority of the Founding Fathers and the typical non-poor white male American of the 1790s would have thought, in legal terms, of the economic, social, governmental, medical, technological, foreign poiicy, etc. structure of a highly diverse nation of 330 million people, none of whom count as 3/5 of a human being, no matter how hard Scalia and his Republican brothers on the bench want to return them to that status.
4 Likes
Bernie has class, and the most evil people in history were brilliant.
Depends on whether he learned anything at these places. Cruz is a recent example of how ideology be used as a shield against knowledge so that you can have extensive academic training and not understand much of anything.
I think we all can agree that Scalia’s time on the court will have long-running consequences. I think both Obama and Sanders were brilliant in giving left-handed compliments to Scalia. It shows class and wit.
So, to epitomize class this is the way Hitler’s epitaph should have read: Adolph was a brilliant man but I disagreed with him?
Well, it didn’t take long to get to Hitler, did it? As I said, Bernie has class—and some don’t.
Hey, you!re the person who brought up brilliant evil people from history. Hitler is a perfectly good jeopardy answer. But you preferred to dodge my point that it is probably a good Idea to avoid adding to the credibility of bad people just to demonstrate that you have ‘class’.
Glad we can agree on at least one point.
Do you even understand why it is wrong to jump to Hitler comparisons? Millions died at the hands of the Nazis. It shows no respect for their loss to compare every comment one hears to Hitler. It’s offensive. Cut that shit out.
Both Obama and Sanders showed class and dished out left-handed compliments. Presidents and candidates should behave differently than those of us commenting on TPM. It’s what separates Democrats from Republicans.
2 Likes
Exactly. Then Kennedy had to write a concurring opinion so that others could have a clue as to what the decision meant.
Yeah, and whether it’s a compliment or not really depends on context (and in this context, Bernie and others are being magnanimous in mourning with his family, rather than adding to their pain). Also, I think there’s multiple forms of “brilliance” that are too easy to conflate. There’s “academic brilliance”, which Scalia must’ve had to get where he had gotten; there’s “emotional brilliance”, which is sounds like he may have had, if stories about his “charm” in-person are true; and then there’s “moral/ethical/empathetic brilliance”, which he absolutely did not have (made unambiguously clear by his rulings and dissents).
1 Like
Now’s not the time, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see an assessment similar to that appear in history books (or perhaps holovids) written a few decades or so hence.
2 Likes
“He was Brilliant and I differed with him”
Does that make him smarter than Scalia or dumber? Old Bernie has a little trouble thinking on his feet.
1 Like
What separates Democrats from Republicans is recognizing that Scalia was evil and not unnecessarily giving him credit.
St. Bernie does a great deal of posing to prove how classy he thinks he is.
And, you’re deliberately missing again: I don’t thiink the type of posing that Bernie does is classy at all.
And ‘being nicer than they are’ is not so much a recipe for being better than them – it’s often a method for losing. We need to consistently tell the truth about who these people are.
Turns out that Scalia did not understand the theory of evolution. That is just plain dumb.