From the New York Times:
The announcement by Justice John Paul Stevens that he would retire at the end of this term gives President Obama the rare opportunity to make back-to-back appointments to the Supreme Court during the first two years of his presidency.
When I gaze about our society, beholding in my mind’s eye the luminaries of our legal system, who through their proven wisdom, unswerving devotion to justice, prodigious intellectual accomplishments, and manifest allegiance to the concepts and principles upon which our great nation was founded and more or less thrives to this day, I cannot help, time and time again, thinking of myself.
I like my life. I like my house, my faux-rustic coffee table, my pantry jammed with cereal. But when duty calls, those who feign not hearing its doorbell are doomed to spend their days wondering, “What if? What if, that one time, it wasn’t Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking at my door? What if that wasn’t my idiot mailman who couldn’t find the White House if he was standing on its lawn? What if I’d answered that knock? Might I have found there, waiting for me to boldly step right into it, duty?”
I don’t want to be someone who steps around, or over, duty. I want to sink my teeth right into my duty.
Therefore, I find that I have no choice but to submit my name to POTUS for consideration as the next SCROTUS. (For those of you who live outside the rarefied air of the United States legal profession, SCROTUS stands for Supreme Court Representatives of the United States.)
John Shore, SCROTUS. I like the weight of that.
Without question I’m known throughout my neighborhood as a person unusually devoted to the concept of fairness. Two days ago, for instance, I wandered into my next door neighbor’s garage while he was cleaning his mechanic’s tools, and asked if I could have one of his air impact drills. He has about seven of them; I haven’t one. Fair, I explained to him, is fair. He failed to grasp the concept; alas, so many today are so incapable of appreciating the core principals upon which our country was founded that, even when faced with an oratory genius brilliantly expounding upon the nature of justice and equality, they can think of no response more sophisticated or appropriate than firing lug nuts at the noble personage valiantly endeavoring to enlighten them.
And just yesterday, when three adorable neighborhood children came to my door sweetly requesting passage into my backyard to fetch their beach ball, did I charge them a quarter each to do so? Yes. And did they appreciate this object lesson in the principles of American capitalism? Hard to tell. And later, when through my kitchen window I spied one of those same children on my front porch holding the hand of a scowling, crew-cutted man so tall and muscular the very sight of him sucked my gonads back up into my abdominal cavity, did I suddenly find something very important to do underneath my sink? Yes. And thank God I did. Turns out I have termites.
See? Everything balances out. That’s just what naturally happens when, like me, your whole life functions as a fulcrum of fortitude and fairness.
Plus, you should see the bathrobe I wear. A Christmas gift from my wife, it’s from Nordstrom’s Shinto Priest With Self-Esteem Issues Vacations in Nantucket collection. The thing is massive. It goes all the way down to my ankles, and puffs out all around me like a fat suit. I would love to wear one of those flowing, more normal, graduation/choir-type robes favored by the SCROTUS’s. I would look good in one of those. I’d wear a sweet ascot with mine. Maybe get a pipe, and some dark blue velvet slippers. Put the class back in class action, knowwhadimean?
I humbly await your call to SCROTUS, POTUS.
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