Alito, light of my Nation, fire of my courts. My land, my law. A-lee-toe: The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. A. Lee. Toe.
He was Al, plain Al, in law school, standing six-foot-two in graduation robes. He was Lee when prosecuting. He was Allie on the bench. He was Samuel before Congress. But in my arms, he was always Alito.
What was it that brought me to the door of this legal coquette, this heaven-flung synthesis of teasing restraint and cleverly concealed activism?
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury (is my pun too vulgar, too obvious, too—dare I say it—American?), I submit to you that it was none other than that most awful of jurists, the hideous Miers woman. Would you believe me if I told you that it was in her scorching light I first found myself caught, a bumbling bee bounced helplessly and hopelessly into the silkiest of webs woven by the blackest of spiders? O wretched life, that the saddest of stories must always be the most true!
You see, it was with the admittedly tragic but long overdue passing of the Chief Justice Rehnquist that I found myself, in my role as president of the United States, the avatar of hope for a needing Nation, the proud Papa of our mewling masses, casting a net into an overfished sea, desperate for a new high priest for the highest of high courts. O, how far and how wide I cast my net, you must believe this, dear Nation, and with each return there was the lawyer Miers, gasping from the gills, insisting I could find none better than her. Her?!? I had thought it was her hand on the net helping me cast! How then that each time it returned her as the only fish?
And what would you have done finding yourself in my situation? The law must be interpreted, mustn’t it? Please understand the piteous lack of recourse that placed me in her arms. I am not a man given over to begging, but now I beseech your understanding.
Here then, is the saddest part of a sad story that eventually turns happy. (Yes, a happy ending, I promise you this!) Nation, when I presented her to you, I presented my failing. As we lolled beneath the soft quilted blankets in the holy Lincoln Bedroom, preparing for you our presentation, my failing became clear to me and yet I did not stop. O me, O wretched me, beguiled by warm whispers in my wet ear of an overturned Roe from a judicial kindergartner, assurances that I was the best president ever from a small child at play in fields of Kings!
“I like bourbon with Coke, and I like it with lots of ice. I simply can’t think without it.”You know what happened next, of course. You read the papers and watch the news; you do this for me. No sooner had our presentation gone out across the land than the hideous lawyer Miers was struck down in the streets, run under by our own cunning and conservative cabal, questioning her credentials and my commitment to our worthy cause! Traitors, ungrateful traitors!
So cruel irony found me wiping the blood from her expiring brow as onlookers gathered, vile jackals who believed me spent. But, dear Nation, cannot irony also be kind? For it was then, at that very moment, that the tenderest of all words wound their way to my ear. “La liberté de tout peut être gardée par un.” Music! Majesty! Turning my head from the lawyer Miers’s cooling corpse, I found myself face to feet with the shining black wingtips of an angel. Shaking, I reached out my hands and stroked soft leather, twisted my trembling fingers around tightly tied laces. O, believe that it took all the restraint I could muster not to fully wrap my arms around those silk-suited legs as I moved my gaze upward and met the angelic eyes of Samuel Alito. A. Lee. Toe.
I wasted no time, of course. Abandoning the lawyer Miers to the harsh judgment of God, I cried to my new beloved, “Come, we must leave this place!” Having lost once, no matter that that which I had lost had the taste to me now of acid, I was determined not to lose again, and most certainly not a countenance as divine as this. Already he was Lee to me, and I piled Lee into my waiting car and fetched the barest of essentials, and then we were off.
“Where are you dragging me to?” asked Lee, petulant at having been plucked away with such haste. He pulled back to the opposite side of our limousine, brushing away my hands that were—quite against my will, I assure you—brushing aside stray strands of his hair to more fully reveal his brown eyes, shining with beatific radiance.
“We are going to Camp David,” I told him, “where I am sure you will find our accommodations meet all your requirements.”
“Do they have bourbon there?” he asked. “I like bourbon with Coke, and I like it with lots of ice. I simply can’t think without it.”
“And what of the primacy of executive branch authority in times of war?” I asked Lee, and he sang the most beautiful song, as though singing to my soul itself.“Oh, Lee, of course there will be bourbon, and Coke, and candy, and cookies, anything you wish for. I shall make it my business to make these things yours.” Lee smiled from the other side of the car, and, dear Nation, do you have any trouble believing that my tired heart melted away to nothing at seeing that smile?
With Lee’s sweetly conspiratorial “So, this is where we start” began a period of glorious retreat, as we prepared our new presentation for you, my dear Nation, you collective consciousness of the world’s brightest aspirations. So many countless hours spent in the comfy, comforting confines (Confines? I reject that word! Our love for each other stripped away all boundaries!) of Camp David, me painting Lee’s toes a deep black (“to match my robes,” he told me, adding a wholly unnecessary but nevertheless delightful “Duh!” which made me—Me, the leader of the free world!—giggle with happiness) while Lee sang to me his opinions on all matters of constitutional law. “And what of the primacy of executive branch authority in times of war?” I asked Lee, and he sang the most beautiful song, as though singing to my soul itself. “And Roe?” I asked, the ensuing song even more enchanting than the last.
But no happiness is forever, gentle Nation, and I soon became aware of a most insidious presence scheming to take darling Lee from my enraptured arms. It seems that Men unloved must take love from another, and so it was that Senator Biden quilted his way into our life. “I have no doubt,” sneered this sniveling senator, “that Justice Alito is possessed of both high intellect and clear integrity.” As if such things were even being questioned, beloved constituents! “Even so, this union, between an out-of-control executive branch and a supplicant judiciary, cannot stand if our Nation itself is to stand.”
And there it was, my faithful Nation, out in the open, this coward of the Congress brazenly stating his intent to tear apart my pure union with Lee for the sake of his own! Clearly, Camp David was no longer the haven I had hoped for, and Washington itself, overrun with hell-spawned armies of snakes and toads, was no safer. So I find myself here in Crawford, Texas, heaven on Earth, on the run, but in the arms of my darling love, Lee, the closest thing to an angel on Earth, or even in heaven itself. Our presentation is now complete, and thus we present ourselves to you, asking humbly for you to bless this union, for our sake, for your sake, for the sake of freedom itself, but loading my gun for Biden should your blessing be withheld.
