Did the Supreme Court boycott Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union speech?
This may be a first. I’ve found two cites that both agree that the absence of all nine SCJs from Clinton’s last State of the Union was a political statement: the World Socialist Web Site and Ann Coulter. :eek:
That combination just gave me a mindscrew that I will probably never recover from. I have no idea how the world works now.
Jeeze there went my whole post.
But was that really a boycott? In what way did the Justices hope to influence Clinton or achieve a change in policy their “boycott”?
You know those Supreme Court Justices. They are always boycotting this or protesting that just hoping that people will listen to them and they can make a difference in the world or at least the nation.
More likely, there was just a rowdy party at Sandra Day O’Connors house that night.
Not likely, if that was the case Clinton himself wouldn’t have shown up for the SOTU address either.
It’s simple, really, my friend. If you go far enough extremist in either direction, you start coming back from the other way! 
So true, so true. Remember when the Russian “hardliners” were trying to oust Yeltsin in Russia? Remember how they, the folks most solidly and historically aligned with the USSR communist party, were referred to as “the conservatives”?
There’s old Yeltsin, that flaming liberal, bringing capitalist market economy to Russia, formerly the land of communism, and them old conservatives are trying to stand in his way.
Well folks, if Ann Coulter has become a reliable news source, then I’ve lost all hope.
In the article flurb cites, Coulter wrote “never before has the entire Supreme Court boycotted a President’s scheduled State of the Union address.”
She’s lying twice.
First, it is true that none of the justices attended. However, this was clearly not an organized protest. Justice Ginsburg was recovering from colon cancer surgery. Justice Thomas was in New Orleans for the funeral of his brother, who had just died. Justice Breyer (a Clinton appointee) was homebound with the flu. It’s possible that all nine were just making up excuses, but five of the nine gave public reasons for not attending. You don’t boycott something secretly.
Secondly, Coulter implies that it’s unusual for Justices to be absent. In fact, it’s more unusual for them all to be there. Three of four skip the address each year. And the last time the entire court was absent? 1986. Was the court boycotting Reagan?
Coulter also wrote: “And never has such a bold, unmistakable statement by the court gone so unremarked upon.” For the record, the Times had an entire article on the subject which appeared on the front page.
Text book example of a political hack taking a non-story and spinning it into something it is not.