Judicial Nominations In the Internet Age 114
Hugh Pickens writes "Chris Good writes in the Atlantic that nominees to the Supreme Court and other high-profile positions are required to provide the Judiciary Committee with everything they've ever written or said publicly, to the best of their abilities within reason. Thanks to the Internet, the last major judicial nominee reported out by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ninth Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu, included links to YouTube videos of lectures and talks he gave, 573 pages of public writings, news articles about him, syllabi from courses he taught, and statements about legal issues. Even so, Liu was admonished for failing to fully disclose his writings and public speeches to senators, including appearances at such occasions as brown bag lunches and alumni gatherings. 'In preparing my original submission, I made a good-faith effort to track down all of my publications and speeches over the years,' wrote Liu. 'I checked my personal calendar, I performed a variety of electronic searches, and I searched my memory to produce the original list. But I have since realized that those efforts were not sufficient.' Not so long ago, entire news articles in local papers could go wholly unnoticed, by both the nominee and committee members and staff, but not so in the era of the Internet. 'Imagine what will happen when, decades from now, a president nominates someone to the Supreme Court who had access to Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook at the age of 15.'"
Re:Most of my writings are long gone. (Score:5, Funny)
Or because of 14 year old self's Xbox Live login name...
"I see here you used to go by the alias, 'p00nhunter.' Now, can you please tell this committee what exactly a p00n is? And why you were hunting them?"
Re:Most of my writings are long gone. (Score:5, Funny)
"Yes Congressman, I was a horny 14 year old that wanted to score pussy. Your secretary tells me you are *still* like that."
Re:Most of my writings are long gone. (Score:3, Funny)
"Yes Congressman, I was a horny 14 year old that wanted to score pussy. Your secretary tells me you are *still* like that."
One up that with, "Your secretary tells me you are still looking for 14 year old poon."
Re:Conversely... (Score:3, Funny)
It's especially bad as it turns out Sen. Smith was actually a judge in a cat show, and was, in preparation for a contest, scoring some of his friends' cats at his apartment to familiarise himself with the scoring system.
Naturally, of course, all the context is thrown out of the window when people want to protest something.
Could work in your favor... (Score:3, Funny)
" 'Imagine what will happen when, decades from now, a president nominates someone to the Supreme Court who had access to Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook at the age of 15."
This could work in alot of people's favor...
When applying as the Head of the Agriculture Department...
"As you can plainly see, I had several successful Farmville farms at age 15."