Isn't the first sentence of this Associated Press story just precious?
INDIANAPOLIS - Loretta Rush was formally sworn in Monday as Indiana's first female chief justice, but her gender hardly was mentioned during the ceremony.
Yeah, right, they want to just talk about her qualifications, which being a woman isn't one of, but we're going to mention that they're not mentioning it just to show how modern and cool we are in recognizing that it is a very big deal anyway. I hate that backing-into-the-obvious cleverness.
And here's the subhead The Journal Gazette put on the story:
New chief justice rewries state history at swearing-in
Well, no, she didn't actually. The judicial history of Indiana, which includes the fact that there has never been a female chief justice until now, is still the judicial history of Indiana. When somebody writes the Indiana judicial history from now on, the fact that we have a female justice will be a part of the story. History does not get rewritten, it just gets added to. Jeez.
But here's the fun second sentence of the story:
“Quite simply, she was the best choice,” Gov. Mike Pence told a crowd of onlookers and media crammed into the law library at the Statehouse shortly before he administered the oath of office to the 56-year-old former juvenile court judge.
Kind of an absurd thing to say, really. Out of the hundreds of people eligible for the bench, she was the bets choice for justice? Out of all the justices on the bench, she was the best choice though others have far longer service? Remember how much grief Daddy Bush got for saying Clarence Thomas was the most qualified for the Surpeme Court? What the governor and the president both meant was that, "Of the people I had to choose from, this is the choice I like best." And, if they had been honest, "I feel like I have to appoint a black, and "I think it's finally time for a woman."
