I have a couple of questions that could be very political and could easily be derailed into Yet Another Political Thread, but I hope they do have factual answers.
I was watching some of the political comedy shows on TV and they were playing some of the questions the Senate committee members were asking Judge Gorsuch, and they included things like, what his favorite trout-fishing stream is, and something about “Would you rather fight one hundred duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?”
I’m pretty confident these questions were really asked–there was video footage and all–but I don’t know what the context was, and don’t really feel like watching hours and hours of C-SPAN coverage to find out. I also haven’t ever watched a SCOTUS confirmation hearing on C-SPAN in the past, so I don’t really have anything to compare all this to.
So, first question, I presume these were some sort of “break the ice” and “get to know you better, Judge Gorsuch” questions, is that correct? Basically, what was the context to that stuff?
My next (and more fundamental) question is, are these sorts of questions more-or-less “normal”? Were Elena Kagan or Samuel Alito asked that sort of thing? To put it another way, how far back in history does that sort of thing go? Were William Rehnquist or Warren Burger asked about their favorite trout-fishing streams, or goofy-sounding hypotheticals about horse-sized ducks and duck-sized horses? (Granted, the answer to that one may be “No, they weren’t” and “March 2017”, but if so I’d like to know.)
So, any hardcore C-SPAN-watching SCOTUS junkies on the SDMB who can put all this into some kind of context for me?
Without digging through the entire transcript, I know that there were some of these types of questions asked to Judge Robert Bork in 1987.
1987 sounds reasonable for the beginning of these types of questions since that’s around the time that icebreakers began to be introduced into business meetings as well.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The duck/horse question was definitely asked. It was put to Gorsuch by the Republican Senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake. The question itself apparently dates back to internet forums in the early 2000s and has been repopularized in recent years on Reddit. See this site.
Sorry, on rereading your post I see you already were confident that it was asked.
As far as I can tell, it’s just something that friendly senators do to humanize the nominee. Flake asked the duck/horse question because his kid is a redditor.
I may be giving Sen. Flake too much credit (not familiar with him or his politics), but the question has always struck me as: “would you prefer to fight 100 small battles, or one big one?” There’s no correct answer, exactly. Depending on the nature of the job, though, it could be relevant. The Supreme Court tends to lean toward fighting a horse-sized duck - it’s very nature is to handle the big, complicated/disputed cases in the context of Constitutional law… the 100 duck sized horses are for the lower courts.
It applies to other fields, as well: strategist vs. designer, Governor vs. office clerk, investigator vs. street patrol, etc…
I’ll also add that I want to see both horse-sized ducks and duck-sized horses, just to see if they live up to the hilarity in the cartoon strip in my head…
On Reddit, the context of this question is that celebrities come by Reddit to do “Ask Me Anything” sessions. This has become a “traditional” question and an in-joke to see how the varied celebrities handle it see if the celebrities were, you know, with it and cool with the Reddit kids of today. Obviously Flake was trying to appeal to the youth and also give a softball, but came a little embarrassing for Flake if you ask me, seemed like he was trying too hard.
Now, the only “wrong” answer for a celebrity is an uncool one. But this is the Dope, so we can be factual. And there is a right answer. Waterfowl meanness scales with size. Ducks are mean, geese are meaner, swans are horrible. A horse-size duck would be terrifying. On the other hand, small horses died off back in the Pleistocene, so are probably pretty harmless and cute, even in great numbers.
Hm. I found some transcripts from the Bork hearings; they’re quite long, and also complex (with tons of separate documents that were evidently entered into the record). Looking through them, I don’t see any of the sorts of things I was referring to in the OP. But of course I may be looking in the wrong place.
Does anyone have any more specific examples? From Bork’s confirmation, or from later (or earlier*) confirmations?
*Senator Bedfellow: Sir, if you were to be a Tree, what ſort of Tree would you be?
John Marſhall: Senator, I would be an Oak. A mighty Oak, bounteouſly raining down acorns of Juſtice.
Senator Bedfellow: Thank you. A moſt excellent anſwer!
I understood that each Senator had a certain amount of time allowed for questioning. If you are a ‘friendly’ Senator, you might use that time with softball questions or just plain silly questions.