Category Archives: General

Scalia and 24

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Once again, Justice Antonin Scalia confuses television with the real world.

“I suppose it’s the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?”

Yes, that kind of thing happens all the time.

As Andrew Sullivan once pointed out,

Earth to Justice Scalia: Jack Bauer does not exist.

If you have some time to kill, here’s an article from the New Yorker last year about the influence of “24.”

[Howard] Gordon [“24’s” show runner], who is a “moderate Democrat,” said that it worries him when “critics say that we’ve enabled and reflected the public’s appetite for torture. Nobody wants to be the handmaid to a relaxed policy that accepts torture as a legitimate means of interrogation.” He went on, “But the premise of ‘24’ is the ticking time bomb. It takes an unusual situation and turns it into the meat and potatoes of the show.” He paused. “I think people can differentiate between a television show and reality.”

Not so much.

Hillary Speaks at Old Cabell

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HRC at UVA

Today’s the Virginia primary, and yesterday Hillary Clinton spoke at my alma mater, the University of Virginia. She spoke to Larry Sabato’s Introduction to American Politics class.

Maybe one day, after all the votes are counted, the oaths sworn and the stories filed, 1,000 people will remember witnessing a uniquely University of Virginia moment in the carefully scripted world of presidential politics: Hillary Clinton and U.Va. politics professor Larry Sabato swaying arm-in-arm onstage as the University Singers led an Old Cabell Hall audience in a rousing rendition of “The Good Ol’ Song.”

She spoke in Old Cabell Hall, an auditorium I know well, because it’s in the music building and it’s where my choruses performed most of their concerts. It’s cool to see photos of her there.

Here’s a podcast of the event.