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Wednesday, November 22, 2017

The Semiotics [?] of "But Gorsuch"

Mark Tushnet

I've seen reports that at the recent Federalist Society meeting "But Gorsuch" stress balls were a popular item. To quote Fezzick, "I do not think [that word] means what you think it means." I take it that it's a riff on "But her e-mails." But, in my experience, "But her e-mails" is a way of identifying something that was offered as a good reason for doing something that turned out to be quite bad. (The Urban Dictionary definition is in that ballpark -- "A not-so-subtle way to change the subject when you are about to be faced with being wrong about something.") So, it seems to me, the Federalist Society folks using the tress balls were saying, "We thought that getting Neil Gorsuch-type judges was -- and is -- a good reason for supporting Trump, but deep down we know that it isn't." (And, by the way, who thought that having Jeff Sessions as a featured speaker was a way of overcoming the perception that the Federalist Society was an arm of the Trump Republican Party?)

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