Palin couldn't name a single SCOTUS decision besides Roe v Wade

[Peikko 1,575]

Your ignorance is as obvious as Ms Palins, why would I waste my precious time trying to explain the obvious to a simpleton?

Is that really you PH or is your account hacked by the one you polled about in the other place?

Wouldn't that be funny?

[HAL 9000 96]

I'd never heard of SCOTUS either but I was able to discern it's meaning from the context of the message. I'm not sure why people are saying it's not a big deal that she knows next to nothing about major decisions made by the Supreme Court. Most Americans can at least think of of a couple of decisions in a general way (not the exact name). Heck, I can name Roe vs Wade and Brown vs the Board of Education myself and my legal expertise is next to nothing.

Dred Scott case, Prize cases, The Amistad case, Civil Rights cases of 1880s, Coffin vs USA, USA vs Bell, the Insular cases, Buck vs Bell, USA vs Butler, Yasui vs USA, Smith vs Allwright, Korematsu vs USA, Sweat vs Painter, Kunz vs New York, Poe vs Ullman, Gideon vs Wainwright, Brady vs Maryland, Benton vs Maryland, Bell vs Wolfish, etc.

Point is, you don't have to go to law school to be able to read. I am pretty sure you've heard of a couple of the cases listed there.

Edited September 30, 2008 by maviwaro

[HAL 9000 96]

Your ignorance is as obvious as Ms Palins, why would I waste my precious time trying to explain the obvious to a simpleton?

Is that really you PH or is your account hacked by the one you polled about in the other place?

Wouldn't that be funny?

Nay... we must never utter the dark language of Mordor in these halls.

[alienlovechild 75]

He has to argue semantics to prove how much more intelligent and well-read he is than everyone else. Clearly 1 year of law school gave him access to a whole lexicon of legal jargon and proprietary abbreviation that allow him to facilitate this fantasy, rather than use the common forms of address and concentrate on refining the content of an argument, rather than the presentation of it.

I had a lecturer at uni who did the same thing - she would use archaisms to deliberately obscure the material she was teaching - because in her mind she came off sounding more intelligent and the subject matter appeared to be more profound.

Not exactly. It's pretty unlikely a person could go to lawschool and not pickup SCOTUS if it was so common in 1990. I can remember Latin phrases better than that. The point is not to demonstrate superiority but to clarify terms. There's no point in discussion if somebody doesn't explain something which is central to the discussion.

I wasn't using the acronym you twit. I'm the one trying to make sense of the last couple sentences on an article that had little to do with the Supreme Court anyway.

Exhibit #1

"In 1983, as the Secret Service usage about the President began to appear in print, a New York Times editorialist took umbrage at the rampant acronymization: ''Is no Washington name exempt from shorthand? The Chief Magistrate responsible for executing the laws is sometimes called the Potus (President of the United States). The nine men who interpret them are often the Scotus. The people who enact them are still, for better or worse, Congress.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

Dred Scott case, Prize cases, The Amistad case, Civil Rights cases of 1880s, Coffin vs USA, USA vs Bell, the Insular cases, Buck vs Bell, USA vs Butler, Yasui vs USA, Smith vs Allwright, Korematsu vs USA, Sweat vs Painter, Kunz vs New York, Poe vs Ullman, Gideon vs Wainwright, Brady vs Maryland, Benton vs Maryland, Bell vs Wolfish, etc.

Point is, you don't have to go to law school to be able to read. I am pretty sure you've heard of a couple of the cases listed there.

I don't think the interviewer wanted a history lesson.

[HAL 9000 96]

He has to argue semantics to prove how much more intelligent and well-read he is than everyone else. Clearly 1 year of law school gave him access to a whole lexicon of legal jargon and proprietary abbreviation that allow him to facilitate this fantasy, rather than use the common forms of address and concentrate on refining the content of an argument, rather than the presentation of it.

I had a lecturer at uni who did the same thing - she would use archaisms to deliberately obscure the material she was teaching - because in her mind she came off sounding more intelligent and the subject matter appeared to be more profound.

Not exactly. It's pretty unlikely a person could go to lawschool and not pickup SCOTUS if it was so common in 1990. I can remember Latin phrases better than that. The point is not to demonstrate superiority but to clarify terms. There's no point in discussion if somebody doesn't explain something which is central to the discussion.

I wasn't using the acronym you twit. I'm the one trying to make sense of the last couple sentences on an article that had little to do with the Supreme Court anyway.

Exhibit #1

"In 1983, as the Secret Service usage about the President began to appear in print, a New York Times editorialist took umbrage at the rampant acronymization: ''Is no Washington name exempt from shorthand? The Chief Magistrate responsible for executing the laws is sometimes called the Potus (President of the United States). The nine men who interpret them are often the Scotus. The people who enact them are still, for better or worse, Congress.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

Dred Scott case, Prize cases, The Amistad case, Civil Rights cases of 1880s, Coffin vs USA, USA vs Bell, the Insular cases, Buck vs Bell, USA vs Butler, Yasui vs USA, Smith vs Allwright, Korematsu vs USA, Sweat vs Painter, Kunz vs New York, Poe vs Ullman, Gideon vs Wainwright, Brady vs Maryland, Benton vs Maryland, Bell vs Wolfish, etc.

Point is, you don't have to go to law school to be able to read. I am pretty sure you've heard of a couple of the cases listed there.

I don't think the interviewer wanted a history lesson.

The answer was not directed at you.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

What need clarifying - given that you seemed to know right off the bat that the article was talking about the Supreme Court.

Methinks you were just being pedantic

Edited September 30, 2008 by Paul Daniels

[alienlovechild 75]

What need clarifying - given that you seemed to know right off the bat that the article was talking about the Supreme Court.

Methinks you were just being pedantic

I knew A.J. was referring to the Supreme Court but was thrown off by this

Ok, how about the SCOTUS decision allowing Gitmo detainees to sue in federal court?

Court findings are referred to as "decisions" and Palin was asked to name other court decision by name besides Roe v. Wade. I wasn't familar with SCOTUS so I was thinking that was the name of case for Gitmo.

[HAL 9000 96]

If you don't know what SCOTUS stands for, you can ask for clarification. Nevertheless, putting the acronym in the same question with Roe vs Wade should give anyone with a minimal high school US government class to realize what SCOTUS stands for by deductive reasoning.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Pre-internet, wow. Damn you must be old as dirt.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

By the way, the decision I'm referring to is BOUMEDIENE ET AL. v. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES, ET AL.

Link- http://supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-1195.pdf

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Does anyone seriously think that Palin doesn't need to know about Supreme Court decisions?

Edited September 30, 2008 by Paul Daniels

[alienlovechild 75]

If you don't know what SCOTUS stands for, you can ask for clarification. Nevertheless, putting the acronym in the same question with Roe vs Wade should give anyone with a minimal high school US government class to realize what SCOTUS stands for by deductive reasoning.

I figured it out after I posted. I didn't wait for the #37 post to set me straight like you just did. You're less than helpful.

Pre-internet, wow. Damn you must be old as dirt.

Yes, my son. It was long, long, long time ago in a land far, far, far away.

By the way, the decision I'm referring to is BOUMEDIENE ET AL. v. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES, ET AL.

How silly of Palin not to know name, Boumediene. He had cooking show on the Food network for years. This proves Palin can't cook either.

Edited September 30, 2008 by alienlovechild

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Does anyone seriously think that Palin ought to know about other relevant Supreme Court decisions?

Well her entire platform is Roe v Wade, so I guess not.

[HAL 9000 96]

Does anyone seriously think that Palin doesn't need to know about Supreme Court decisions?

She damn better know about them being a potential US President.

If you don't know what SCOTUS stands for, you can ask for clarification. Nevertheless, putting the acronym in the same question with Roe vs Wade should give anyone with a minimal high school US government class to realize what SCOTUS stands for by deductive reasoning.

I figured it out after I posted. I didn't wait for the #37 post to set me straight like you just did. You're less than helpful.

Pre-internet, wow. Damn you must be old as dirt.

Yes, my son. It was long, long, long time ago in a land far, far, far away.

I wasn't trying to teach you.

If it makes you feel any better- I didn't know what it was either until I saw it in writing and put it into the proper context.

[Staashi 371]

I'm just disappointed with her idiocy in general - come on, if you're an American student, you learned about most of these in high school and college. She's only concerned about Roe v. Wade because she personally takes a stand against it.

Some of my favorites (from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0101289.html):

1857

Dred Scott v. Sandford was a highly controversial case that intensified the national debate over slavery. The case involved Dred Scott, a slave, who was taken from a slave state to a free territory. Scott filed a lawsuit claiming that because he had lived on free soil he was entitled to his freedom. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney disagreed, ruling that blacks were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. Taney further inflamed antislavery forces by declaring that Congress had no right to ban slavery from U.S. territories.

1896

Plessy v. Ferguson was the infamous case that asserted that “equal but separate accommodations†for blacks on railroad cars did not violate the “equal protection under the laws†clause of the 14th Amendment. By defending the constitutionality of racial segregation, the Court paved the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws of the South. The lone dissenter on the Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan, protested, “The thin disguise of ‘equal’ accommodations…will not mislead anyone.â€

1954

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka invalidated racial segregation in schools and led to the unraveling of de jure segregation in all areas of public life. In the unanimous decision spearheaded by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court invalidated the Plessy ruling, declaring “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place†and contending that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.†Future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall was one of the NAACP lawyers who successfully argued the case.

1963

Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteed a defendant's right to legal counsel. The Supreme Court overturned the Florida felony conviction of Clarence Earl Gideon, who had defended himself after having been denied a request for free counsel. The Court held that the state's failure to provide counsel for a defendant charged with a felony violated the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. Gideon was given another trial, and with a court-appointed lawyer defending him, he was acquitted.

1966

Miranda v. Arizona was another case that helped define the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. At the center of the case was Ernesto Miranda, who had confessed to a crime during police questioning without knowing he had a right to have an attorney present. Based on his confession, Miranda was convicted. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that criminal suspects must be warned of their rights before they are questioned by police. These rights are: the right to remain silent, to have an attorney present, and, if the suspect cannot afford an attorney, to have one appointed by the state. The police must also warn suspects that any statements they make can be used against them in court. Miranda was retried without the confession and convicted.

And naturally, Roe v. Wade.

She had a boatload to choose from and any one of these would have been great to highlight; but when you can't see the forest but for the trees you see nothing.

Edited September 30, 2008 by Staashi