It’s no wonder that this is happening on Barack Hussein Obama’s watch. I mean, am I right or what? And by this, I mean the fact that if Elana Kagan, the chalk pick* as President Obama’s choice to replace John Paul Stevens, is nominated and confirmed, there will be no white Anglo-Saxon Protestants left on the Supreme Court. Not one! Think about it: there will be six Catholics** and three Jews**** charged with interpreting the United States Constitution, the most sacred document in the history of ever. Somebody fetch me some tea; I’m ready to party.
* What does this expression mean? No, I’m not going to look it up. That’s cheating.
** Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Sotomayor, and Thomas.***
*** “Thomas is Catholic?” you’re saying to yourself. “Yes”, I’m saying back at you. Because it’s true: the man is Catholic.
**** Breyer, Ginsburg, and, in this nightmarish parallel universe that used to be known as the United States of America, Kagan.
The Edge of the American West 
54 comments
April 16, 2010 at 1:03 pm
silbey
Roberts is an honorary WASP.
April 16, 2010 at 1:05 pm
ari
an honorary WASP
No such thing. You’d know that if you weren’t a dirty Jew.
April 16, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Howard L. Green
Even if Thomas were a Protestant, he wouldn’t be a WASP, by my sense of the term.
April 16, 2010 at 1:41 pm
silbey
No such thing. You’d know that if you weren’t a dirty Jew.
Saucy.
April 16, 2010 at 2:12 pm
ari
Even if Thomas were a Protestant, he wouldn’t be a WASP, by my sense of the term.
There is the whole “W”, isn’t there?
April 16, 2010 at 2:14 pm
ari
Saucy.
Yes, and not Béarnaise, either.
April 16, 2010 at 2:18 pm
kevin
There is the whole “W”, isn’t there?
And the “A-S” as well.
April 16, 2010 at 2:29 pm
ari
Right, that.
April 16, 2010 at 2:49 pm
kathy a.
but you are ignoring the big issue here — one more woman, and the USSC will be 1/3 gurlz, more than the historic maximum. that’s enough to set off a tizzy fit, on cooties grounds alone.
April 16, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Spike
The court needs an atheist.
April 16, 2010 at 3:02 pm
ari
Wow, kathy, I really did take my eye of the ball, didn’t I? What if their cycles synchronize and they all get their period at the same time? What then? They might throw out the Constitution entirely — in a fit of irrational spite.
April 16, 2010 at 3:12 pm
ari
Probably when Ginsburg retires Obama should replace her with Chuck Norris.
April 16, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Jason B.
Chuck Norris doesn’t mete out justice. Justice metes out . . .
Wait, that doesn’t work.
April 16, 2010 at 3:37 pm
kevin
Scientifically speaking, it is impossible to charge Chuck Norris with “obstruction of justice.” This is because even Chuck Norris cannot be in two places at the same time.
April 16, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Charlieford
It doesn’t matter. Protestants wrote the Constitution, so we’ll continue to manipulate the nation from afar. You can’t get away from us that easily.
April 16, 2010 at 5:56 pm
silbey
Chuck Norris wrote the Constitution.
April 16, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Mr. Sidetable
I am one WASP that is sick and tired of the Man keeping him down.
April 16, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Charlieford
If Chuck Norris had written the Constitution, there would have been no compromises whatsoever, let alone a half-hearted 3/5 of one.
April 16, 2010 at 7:06 pm
silbey
You criticize Chuck Norris’ Constitution?
April 16, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Vance
Naturally, with a sample size of nine, all sorts of anomalies are possible. But is it possible that since the Irish and Italians became white (i.e., around when sexual intercourse began), Catholics have become the thinking man’s conservative Christians?
(FWIW, I am myself an actual WASP — being a lapsed Christian doesn’t, I think, disqualify me as a Protestant.)
April 17, 2010 at 4:53 am
Malaclypse
But is it possible that since the Irish and Italians became white (i.e., around when sexual intercourse began), Catholics have become the thinking man’s conservative Christians?
Ross Douhat would like for you to think this is so.
April 17, 2010 at 6:46 am
Fats Durston
The *Passing of the Great Race II* “The Anglo-Saxons seem to be almost as incapable of progress as the Hindoos themselves. The only essential difference being that the arrest of mental development comes later in life for the white man than for the brown.”
We, the White Anglo-Saxon Race, must revenge our enslavement by mingling our blood with that of our new masters.
April 17, 2010 at 11:00 am
urbino
The WASP went the way of the honeybee.
Here’s a non-rhetorical question: what are the odds that anybody can win confirmation from the current senate? (Confirmation of their SCOTUShood, that is, not their Catholicism.)
April 17, 2010 at 11:45 am
eric
Ordinarily, I would say that a Supreme Court nomination is sufficiently high-profile that absent an enormous media-abetted temper tantrum it couldn’t be indefinitely blocked, unlike all those picayune federal judgeships and executive branch appointments. But we live in no ordinary times, do we.
April 17, 2010 at 1:07 pm
andrew
Chuck Norris doesn’t write constitutions; he constitutes.
April 17, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Scott Madin
That’s a good point. In its entire history there has been no Yithian representation on the Supreme Court! Obama must take action to remedy this longstanding injustice right away!
April 17, 2010 at 1:46 pm
urbino
But we live in no ordinary times, do we.
It doesn’t seem so.
I really have a hard time seeing how it happens. Besides the ongoing strategy of obstruction, and the remarkable degree of discipline McConnell has maintained, there’s the fact that the GOP has a not unreasonable hope of winning back the senate in November. It seems to me they’re going to want to keep this open until then to raise the stakes for their base and drive turnout.
Returning to Ari’s question: would any of the current SCOTUS Catholics qualify as WASPs even if they became Presbyterians? Roberts would, I suppose, but Kennedy and Alito fail the Anglo-Saxon test, don’t they?
April 17, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Colin
that would require the GOP winning 28 of 34 Senate seats this Fall, Urbino — holding all 18 Republican seats and taking 10 of the 16 Democratic seats, to get to 51.
It’ll be interesting to see how financial reform plays out, though — if the Democratic strategy is to let the Republicans try a filibuster and see how it plays.
April 17, 2010 at 2:04 pm
kevin
I believe Nate Silver put the Republicans’ chances at getting to 51 seats this fall at something like 4%.
April 17, 2010 at 2:09 pm
urbino
In the current climate, I think they’re confident they’ll hold all 18 GOP seats, and feel pretty good about picking up a lot of Dem seats. Charlie Cook’s numbers, for example, show only 7 safe Dem incumbents.
I agree that the financial reform fight will tell us a lot about the strategy. The GOP’s current stance on it — getting all 41 members of their caucus to sign the letter opposing the current bill — is one of the things that makes me think the SCOTUS fight will drag into next year.
A lot can change, obviously, but the signs right now are not good.
April 17, 2010 at 2:42 pm
kevin
In the current climate, I think they’re confident they’ll hold all 18 GOP seats, and feel pretty good about picking up a lot of Dem seats.
I don’t think so. They’re within the margin of error of losing seats they now hold in Ohio and Missouri, for instance.
A lot can change, obviously, but the signs right now are not good.
True, but I’m hard pressed to believe they’re going to get worse for Democrats.
The heat on HCR is fading and should reverse more as people learn the details, the economy has turned a corner and we’re seeing job gains this month in 2/3 of the states, and now the Republicans are publicly setting themselves up to be seen as the defenders of Wall Street.
They’ll gain seats in both houses, but I really don’t think they have a realistic shot of retaking either.
April 17, 2010 at 4:23 pm
urbino
I’m sorry, I meant the signs were not good for a SCOTUS confirmation this year.
As for whether or not they have a realistic shot at retaking the senate, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is they feel they have a shot, there’s just enough evidence to give them reason to hope, and their chances will be improved by holding the Stevens seat open until after the election.
That’s my read on the situation, anyway. I’ve been known to be wrong.
April 17, 2010 at 5:34 pm
kevin
Ah, sorry. Well, on that issue, I’d put the odds of no SCOTUS confirmation at 1000-1.
The Democrats have the numbers to get the nomination out of Judiciary with relative ease, and even discounting unreliable votes like Lieberman and Nelson, they still have a solid 58 votes on the floor. Let a couple more flake away, and they still have easy passage.
The only hiccup is a filibuster on the floor of the Senate. And there’s absolutely no way all of the Republicans hang together on an actual filibuster of a judicial nominee after stomping their feet and making “up or down vote” noises during the Bush administration.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
April 17, 2010 at 5:59 pm
urbino
Are we talking about the same Republican caucus?
If they don’t filibuster, it won’t be because they stomped their feet, before. Inconsistency is not a problem.
April 17, 2010 at 7:37 pm
George
Obviously what the Supreme Court needs is…
Teddy Roosevelt.
April 18, 2010 at 4:34 am
kevin
They’ll stomp their feet, they’ll complain, but they will not mount an actual filibuster. They don’t have the numbers, they don’t have the will, they don’t have the time.
Trust me. I’ll wager actual money on this, if you’d like.
April 18, 2010 at 4:43 am
kevin
Let me put it this way — Sotomayor was portrayed by the right wing as the worst pick for the Court ever, and yet nine Republicans still voted for her.
Do you really think all nine of them will now move to sustain a filibuster, when they refused to do so then?
April 18, 2010 at 8:23 am
TF Smith
It is an interesting bit of demographics, actually – not quite as epochal as having a chief executive who is of significant African ancestry, but still…
Granted, 9 out of 300 million is not a very good sample, but (and I expect the 2010 census will bear it out yet again) the various elements of the WASP acronym remain the largest single “bloc” (for lack of a better word) of the citizenry in these here United States…
(i.e, if WASPs are defined as American citizens who trace their ancestry to northwestern Europe and whose ancestors worshipped in Protestant Christian denominations – if the definition requires active religious involvement beyond CEO, damned if I know…little harder to survey for that).
Protestingly yours
April 18, 2010 at 9:07 am
jim
No. England, not northwestern Europe. “Anglo-Saxon” is English. Not even Scots. Not all Protestant denominations qualify, either. WASP is a fairly flexible term, but not that flexible.
April 18, 2010 at 9:50 am
TF Smith
Jim –
If that’s the definition, then I’m not sure even Stevens qualifies – at the very least, we are assuming facts not in evidence.
The best most recent bio I could find of Justice Stevens is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/magazine/23stevens-t.html?_r=1
Nothing about his ancestry beyond his parents being Chicagoans; for all we know, his paternal grandfather was born Stanislaus Yablonski and changed the surname at Ellis Island…
Best
April 18, 2010 at 9:10 pm
THE CON
I thought this was about the band WASP
April 19, 2010 at 6:52 am
Richard J
jim> Which makes the various Roosevelts non-WASPs, then?
April 19, 2010 at 7:05 am
dave
Absolutely. Bloody cheese-eating Dutchmen, the lot of them. Speaking as an actual WASP, if I were Protestant, which I’m not, unless I’m in Ulster, where I am one by default. Confused? You will be.
April 19, 2010 at 7:51 am
jim
Richard J.,
No. The one-drop test doesn’t apply.
April 20, 2010 at 11:34 am
Jess
Also, each of the Supreme Court Justices are either fire or water signs according to the zodiac… (Roberts, an Aquarius, is the only exception). Kagan a taurus (earth) might contribute to court diversity in other ways.
I hope Obama’s people are on top of this.
PS Happy Birthday Stevens.
April 24, 2010 at 9:08 am
max
Absolutely. Bloody cheese-eating Dutchmen, the lot of them.
Speaking as a bearer of the orange there and piping up a bit late (my flight was delayed), I’d say the court (compared to the general American population) over-represents heterosexuals, men, whites, Catholics, and Jews in that order. It also over-represents old people, of course. It could be argued that since Justice Thomas is on the court, blacks are slightly overrepresented at 11% of the court versus 9-10% of the population, but if we apply a 3/5ths compromise to Thomas, as the Founders would have wanted, Thomas would count as 3/5ths of a white Catholic. So: blacks are therefore underrepresented.
Therefore, Justice Stevens needs to be replaced by a black African-American woman, Southern Baptist please. Then Justice Ginsberg needs to be replaced by a white Jewish woman, thus holding the line on female representation, and after wards one of the white men (preferably Scalia) can be replaced by a white Universalist (since Universalists tend to be friendlier to atheists than any other Protestants) lesbian. The court would still over-represent men, Catholics, Jews and conservatives, but it would be a much closer match to the actual demographics of America.
m, and you could pull it off in just three picks
April 24, 2010 at 9:52 am
kathy a.
oh, i’m totally in favor of replacing scalia with any kind of universalist. but i think saying that out loud means that won’t happen for a few decades. can’t anyone convince him that he could do a lot, have fun, and earn more money as a private citizen? has the man no mercy?
April 24, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Jason B.
I’m totally in favor of replacing Scalia with Paris Hilton, to be honest.
April 24, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Charlieford
I’m just in favor of Paris Hilton. Period.
April 24, 2010 at 2:07 pm
ari
I, too, think Perez Hilton should be on the bench.
April 24, 2010 at 4:00 pm
urbino
over-represents heterosexuals, men, whites, Catholics, and Jews in that order.
Wouldn’t “rich people” head that list?
April 24, 2010 at 8:26 pm
TF Smith
Compared to the general American population, there are too damn many lawyers and college graduates, actually…I give you:
Associate Justice G. Harrold Carswell, esq.
April 24, 2010 at 9:59 pm
kathy a.
i just don’t know that any of these people are WASP enough. justice carswell might come close, though, being officially deceased.
April 25, 2010 at 12:04 pm
TF Smith
Plus, Roman Hruska thought he was a fine representative of the Mediocre-American community….