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If U.S. Supreme Court Justices Were Rock Stars…
The Balkinization blog has a post entitled If Supreme Court Justices Were Rock Stars that matches judges from the United States’ top court with the musicians who have the same basic “style” in their opinion writing.
The following results emerged in what are described as “dinner table discussions” (glug, glug, glug):
- Sandra Day O’Connor– Britney Spears. (The early Britney, pre-K-Fed, not the later, trashy Britney.) Artistically incoherent but enormously successful attempts to appeal to the exact center of popular taste.
- William Rehnquist– David Byrne of Talking Heads, Blondie, Devo. Unsentimental, terse, and cleverly ironic 80’s New Wave post-punk. (Psycho-Killer could easily be a Rehnquist opinion except, of course, for the use of French. No foreign sources in our Constitution, thank you.).
- Anthony Kennedy– Lionel Richie, Barry Manilow. Overly earnest ballads that set your teeth on edge.
- Clarence Thomas– Prince, Lou Reed. Key aesthetic ideal: I don’t give a **** what *you* think. The Justice Formerly Known as Clarence.
- Ruth Bader Ginsberg– Alanis Morissette. A Jagged Little Constitution.
- Antonin Scalia– Meat Loaf. Histrionic Opera Rock.
- David Souter– Paul Simon. Bookish, a little too insular and self-contained. Still crazy after all these years.
- John Paul Stevens– Willie Nelson. Crusty, independent, been around forever. (But what about his vote in the marijuana case?)
- Stephen Breyer– Nobody. Stephen Breyer doesn’t rock and roll
Maybe some of the more risk-loving types on Slaw would like to have a go at trying to find matches for our Canadian Supremos.
Make it interesting. Use Canadian rock or popular music stars, only. Canadian includes our exports to the US, of course.
Actually the only time I saw Justice Breyer was at Charlie Nesson’s show at Harvard and I could have sworn they played a Motown Supremes medley. Tasteful but rocked.
Scalia as Meatloaf? No way. Meatloaf has a huge heart.
Justice S is hardcore. He’s 100% Death Metal, like Bloodaxe.
I’m a little surprised that this bunch hasn’t come up with a similar list for the Canadian Supremes!