Judicial temperament and the State of the Union

Samual Alito, activist and expressive judge.

The Justices are seated at the very front of the chamber, and it was predictable in the extreme that the cameras would focus on them as Obama condemned their ruling. Seriously: what kind of an adult is incapable of restraining himself from visible gestures and verbal outbursts in the middle of someone's speech, no matter how strongly one disagrees -- let alone a robe-wearing Supreme Court Justice sitting in the U.S. Congress in the middle of a President's State of the Union address? Recall all of the lip-pursed worrying from The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen and his secret, nameless friends over the so-called "judicial temperament" of Sonia Sotomayor. Alito's conduct is the precise antithesis of what "judicial temperament" is supposed to produce.

It is sweet, sweet...er...justice, that Sam Alito must call "colleague" someone he tried very hard* to keep out of Princeton.

As for the speech itself, I haven't had much to say about itmainly because I've been busy doing the devil's work, but mostly because I don't have much to say about it, other than, as is usually the case when I listen to the president, I'm glad he's the president.

One thing I think the speech seems to have effectively done was to cool the anger from the left for the time being. Any fears that Obama would go into a defensive crouch were put to rest.

And I have to ask, does the image of Eric Cantor and John Boehner doing fair impersonations of Tab Hunter** and George Hamilton** in their primes inspire Republicans?

* As an aside, the only indication that Alito was a member of CAP comes from his job application to be Edwin Meese's Deputy Assistant AG. Republicans.

UPDATE: ** Not that there's anything wrong with that.