"Now, Centronics, which is on page... 767. Note that the opinion is written by New Hampshire state court justice David Souter. This is back in the days when Souter was an obscure nothing judge in New Hampshire, which is kind of an obscure nothing place. Now, I know there's going to be somebody from New Hampshire, and they're gonna come up to me after class, and yell and scream, but, you know, that's the facts.
"So you might say, well, gee, uncle Bob, I wonder why David Souter is now a United States Supreme Court Justice if he's so obscure. And the answer is he is a United States Supreme Court Justice precisely because he was obscure. He's this guy... he's innocuous. You know, if you've ever seen Souter. Cute little guy... bow tie... got a little smile... you know. Never said anything to offend anybody. Never wrote anything. Apparently never had a thought. Lived with his mommy. Lived with his mommy in New Hampshire. And he was an attorney general for the state of New Hampshire, was a judge, and became a justice on the court.
"And, you know, George Bush, big George Bush, did not want another Robert Bork or, you know... I mean, a lot of times you nominate somebody like, take Bork or Clarence Thomas, and they really get beaten up pretty good because they've actually expressed opinions of things. So, you know, big George Bush is trying to find a conservative Republican who's never uttered a word in public and who's never upset anybody. So John Sununu is Chief of Staff and he's a screaming right-wing conservative from New Hampshire, former Governor. Says, "Yeah, Souter's your man. You can nominate him. He's never made anybody mad. He's a bright guy, and he'll fly through." And during the confirmation hearings they'd ask Souter questions, and he'd give these really cryptic answers... So he got confirmed a hundred to nothing; nobody could find anything. And then Bush thought "Okay. Now he's gonna get on the court and become a screaming right-wing guy," but, unfortunately, what Souter didn't know was that he was actually quite liberal. So, you know, you try to stack the court with conservative Republicans and you end up with a liberal Republican. Very unfortunate. So that's how David Souter is on the Supreme Court.
"The moral of the story is, if you want to get on the US Supreme Court, don't do anything controversial. Wear bow ties, you know, live with your mom, don't express any opinions, don't write editorials, don't write articles, don't do anything. Just sorta hang out. They called him the stealth candidate... like the stealth bomber. You couldn't detect him. Nobody knew... nobody knew who he was. Nobody had heard of him. He's on the Supreme Court, and I'm not, nor will I ever be. So there is a lesson. Life is not fair. I accept that... I accept that. When you get your grades, I hope you accept that.
"So this is, yes, so this is judge Souter, way, way, back when he was merely a New Hampshire State Supreme Court judge who couldn't have realistically hoped to ever come on the Supreme Court..."
No, we don't go on random tangents in class. Why did you ask?
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