Well it's 5AM and I have been chunking-around for the past 2.5 hours unable to sleep. Which means? That's right: perfect time to continue gathering information that will help me strategically plan my ascension to Supreme Court clerkdom via an uncompromisingly liberal path.
For the record, I wouldn't turn down the chance to work on challenging and important legal issues with ANY judicial genius, and I have read, before, that in considering federal and SCOTUS clerkships, one should not select judges based on their political reputation (duh). That said, it would rock my world to clerk with 9th Circuit (the biggest and most liberal circuit) Judge Marsha Berzon (who is unfortunately totally NOT a feeder judge), and then go work for Justice Stevens. To give you some background (and I promise we will have a cute dog photo in a minute!), I must steal, from A3G's hilarious "Bench-Slapping" blog, the following description of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (I love it that A3G, as a conservative, can still speak with such awe and flattery about someone from OUR side):
Darth Vader's position is already taken: by the brilliant, cold-as-ice Judge Marsha
Berzon. A member of the Elect, Judge Berzon uses the light-saber of her chilly intellect to cut down all who stand in her way. President Clinton spent a tremendous amount of political capital pushing Judge Berzon's nomination to the
Ninth Circuit through the Senate, despite strong opposition from the Republicans, because he knew that only she was qualified to take up the mantle of Judge Reinhardt. After Judge Reinhardt's inevitable passing, only Judge Berzon can provide comparably courageous and cunning leadership for the left wing of the Ninth Circuit. Article III Groupie is both obsessed with and deathly afraid of Judge Berzon, who will no doubt cast her dark shadow over the pages of UTR in the not-too-distant future. (For those of you Harry Potter fans out there, Judge Berzon will sometimes be referred to in the pages of UTR as "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or "You-Know-Who.")
You guys KNOW how Veiled Chunk loves brilliant and cold-as-ice femmes fatales. Anyway, the point is that while my ideal path would include clerkships with Berzon and Stevens, Stevens just turned 85 and probably will not, I am sad to say, be around for the OT (October Term) 2010 when VC would begin his clerkship at One First Street. [Incidentally, and I may have to take this off if anyone other than my close friends/family start reading this, but take a look at this photo of Stevens, and then take a look at this photo of his new HLS grad clerk -- found out, by A3G to be a "heartbreaker." Now I don't want to start rumours, but amazingly-well-aged octogenarian bow-tie-totting SCOTUS hottie hires dashing
Harvard law heartbreaker? You figure it out...] I think my readers of various faiths and persuasions should all take a moment to pray, in his or her own way, for the continued longevity and judicial wisdom of Justice Stevens.Ok now that we've built-up some good Supreme Court Karma, we should turn our attention to a different justice for whom VC might one day find himself a chambermaid, and that is Justice Scouter. I don't have much to say about Scouter at this point, except that he seems fond of hiring HLS grads and hot girls (insert VC rant about how unfair it is to be first in your class in law school AND SKINNY!) -- you can see A3G's profile of his new clerks for evidence -- but I just wanted to show you, which was the original point of this post before I got so sidetracked, the ADORABLE bulldog belonging to one of his new clerks (who is, of course, an attractive HLS girl). Her name (the dog, not the clerk) is Bella, and her adorableness not only prompts VC to blog about her at 5 (now almost 6)AM, but totally makes VC crave with even more intensity than normal the days when he can move back to NYC and have an English Bulldog named Jocasta with his Pookie Pod [better than ANY clerkship!].
Waiting for the dining room in my guesthouse to open so that I can further chunkify (and re-hydrate).
VC