Three Hundred Percent, That's Not Too Many

[akirlu]

So, to give Sarah Palin her due, I can't name that many landmark Supreme Court decisions just off the top of my head without coaching or googling.

Plessy v. Ferguson
Brown v. Board of Education
Bush v. Gore

That's all I got, then it's Life Line time. Only three. Of course, that amounts to three hundred percent more than Palin managed. But I'm not sure any of those cases would have been good choices for her to mention, for various reasons. Especially that last one...

Other decisions that ring a bell for me, once mentioned:

Miranda v. Arizona
Korematsu v. United States
Marbury v. Madison
UC Regents v. Bakke
FCC v. Pacifica Broadcasting


And if she were honest about it, apparently these* are some of the ones she should be familiar with because of their inherent badness... Gotta say, it scares the piss out of me that what these folks will be gunning for after Roe v. Wade are Lawrence v. Texas (decriminalizing homosexuality) and Everson v. Board of Education (separation of church and state). Surprise me? No. Scare me? Yes.

So, how many Supremes numbers can you name?

*ETA - Oops, wrong link there -- in case anyone is still reading, what I meant to link to was these "worst" SCOTUS decisions.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, but all sorts of people forget which state Miranda is, that sort of thing. If she'd said, "Of course the Dred Scott case was a landmark, and exactly the sort of case that proves that no Supreme Court is infallible," nobody would have pressed her about who it was Dred Scott versus.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, Dred Scott is the other classic, but surely Brown v. Board of Education is imprinted on the DNA of anyone who took 20th C. history in a U.S. school?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I should think so, and my high school sucked royally. I'm just saying, I'm seeing a lot of people selling themselves somewhat short in an attempt to bend over backwards not to be harsher than they need to be about Spiro Palin. And I think there's plenty of harsh justified.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay, well, just in case I wasn't overt enough, I'm not really trying to bend over backwards to be kind to Palin. I kinda think the facts speak for themselves. This is a woman who is on the record believing that homo sapiens and dinosaurs inhabited the planet at the same time. This is a woman who speaks with glowing approval of her pastor, the same guy who apparently harassed an African woman out of her own village on charges of witchcraft. This is a woman who, when pressed, could not name a single newspaper or other periodical that she reads. This is a woman who continues to cling to the joke about being able to see Russia from her house as if the claim about proximity equaling foreign policy experience were serious. This is a woman who, once off the teleprompter, can't seem to string together two declarative sentences in a row without losing her way in the middle. Everything we find out about her is painfully godawful, so much so that simply pointing out that she couldn't name a single important Supreme Court decision besides Roe v. Wade seems damning enough without added emphasis from me.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

For me, the ones I've seen mentioned (except Dred Scott, Roe v. Wade and maybe Bush v. Gore) are all in recognition (rather than use) vocabulary, so no, I wouldn't be able to mention them in an interview.

But I should think most people would want to hire a vice-President who does have substantial knowledge about such important political stuff as that.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is priceless, when even evial damn' ferriners can name more US Supreme Court decisions than Sarah Palin. Damned intellectuals!

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i can name oodles -- just did in somebody else's journal. but then i have a bit of an interest and much of that knowledge was acquired when i had a relationship with a law student who dreamed of being on the supreme court one day. :)

it surprised me that she couldn't even name exxon v. baker -- that decision was made in june, and it's of local interest to alaska. she must have had a total brain freeze (she seems to have had a lot of them in that interview; i wonder whether she crammed so much that it left her brain in temporary disarray).

[paulcarp.livejournal.com]

Supremes numbers:

Stop! In the Name of Love.
Baby Love
Love Child
Where Did Our Love Go?
You Can't Hurry Love
Love is Here, and Now You're Gone

And those are just the ones with "love" in the title.

Oh. Supreme Court numbers. I can't name them, but you can read the Supreme Court decisions on line, which I often do. Although, as I post this, I notice you can't.

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.

Was the decision that granted rights to corporate persons equal to real persons.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

In a conversation recently I was hitting my head trying to remember the name of a decision which turned out to be Gideon v. Wainwright.

My favorite obscure USSC case, i.e. one which I could explain the cause and impact of off the top of my head, is Baker v. Carr. It is I think the only case invoking the spectre of fractal geometry.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

When the Palin interview came out, I mentally noted a few. I can name some, eg Marbury vs. Madison, with most being of the construction, "the one that Reagan take control of the National Guard in case Nicaragua invaded".

Still, I'm not trying to be President of the Senate, or one shaky heartbeat away from the presidency of the US.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I can't always recall the defendant:

Marbury v Madison
Escobedo
Gideon v Florida
Tinker v Rhode Island
Miller v Texas
Schenk
Times v Sullivan
Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific
Loring v Palmer
Griswold v Conneticut
Scott v Sanford
Marbury v Madison
Loving v Virginia
Nixon v NYT
Bush v Gore

[urlgirl.livejournal.com]

Um... People vs Larry Flynt? :)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I came up with this one too, eventually (after a friend joked that Palin cited Kramer vs. Kramer), but it turns out the real case was called Hustler Magazine v. Falwell.

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

1. You can name 300% more than Sarah Palin.

2. You are not likely to be in line for the highest office in the United States, unless there is something aobut you I don't know.

The problem with Sarah Palin's "I represent Joe six-pack" line is that we cannot afford ordinary people in the White House; we need extraordinary intellects.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree completely. I find the cynical appeal to anti-intellectual resentment in rural voters horrifying. What I find more horrifying is that it (apparently) works, viz. the long, inexplicable popular success of GW Bush. I mean it took what, 6-7 years, for the media and the public to become genuinely disenchanted with the man? That's a ridiculously slow reaction time.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

To be fair, she was only asked to name decisions she disagreed with. (Not that I think she could have named any at all, either...) She certainly wouldn't have named Bush v Gore :->

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Doesn't Marbury v. Madison sound like it should happen in a ring?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Under Marquis of Queensbury rules, yes.