Clarence Thomas is a Black Man

There is no such thing as reciprocity in today's political system. As far as judicial nominations, it's a battle of shear numbers. As Lakoff points out on page 122, after the borking, there began a language war between "us and them." Our country was founded on a series of compromises. As the example in the book points out, senators on the judiciary committee like Alan Simpson already made their minds up in the Hill/Thomas thing. Lakoff makes a great connection between apologies and threats, saying that they are often issued in a non-canonical form, the indirect threat. I love the explanation she gives on the top of page 124. It's kind of long and I had to take a breath afterwards. I think this entire section was summed up well with the Queen of Hearts' quote: "Verdict first - evidence afterwards." As with most of our legislation and even the more recent Alito hearings, the votes are split based on party affiliation.

Then, the mess turns into an all out language war, doesn't it? The entire situation was a disgrace to the system our founders set up, isn't that right? After the long show down, Lakoff breaks down the "who won" argument. I would agree with all the arguments, but I wouldn't say that anybody actually "won."

I would like to jump back to the anagram of five levels. I would like to add the 24-hour news networks to the 3rd and 4th level. They chew the hell out of stories because well... they have all day to talk about them. The same thing happened with our lovely bake sale here at KU. Nobody remembers what really happened and now it's been drawn out so long that I think it is worthy of the scholarly article (level 5).

And did you hear? Mark, the president of the college republicans, is going to be kicked out, and as rumor has it, they are appointing a black president to the position, who, just a few weeks earlier, said he didn't know much about politics on Dan Brockway's pathetic talk show. What a wonderful political stunt. Now they can play the race card if their group is attacked. Sounds a lot like the stunt Daddy Bush pulled with Thomas because, as we all know, Clarence Thomas is a black man.

(did anyone else miss the Thelma and Louise connection?)