The Kopf Story Written, But Not Quite The Kopf Story

The first rewrite of the AP news feed was by 2015 University of Nebraska journalism graduate Emily Nitcher of the Omaha World-Herald. The second had no byline, and admitted to merely being an AP story at the Lincoln Journal-Star. Both shared a common goal, to completely mislead their readers.

Over the weekend, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf reacted to comments made by a group of current and former law clerks. The group, Law Clerks for Workplace Accountability, was formed in response to reports of harassment within the federal judiciary, according to its website.

One might expect what follows to address the controversy, the substance of the  reactions. Oh, sweet summer child.

Article III of the Constitution says judges will hold office “during good behavior” and will be compensated for their services.

“My tweet generated near universal condemnation,” Kopf wrote in a subsequent blog post.

As of Thursday, the tweet had 123 replies. Most were negative.

Are they suggesting that this twit puts in question Judge Kopf’s position as an Article III judge, for lack of good behavior on twitter? Perhaps. Why knows what Nitcher’s grasp of “good behavior” means?

In a sense, it’s my fault for not editing the line about “universal condemnation” in Judge Kopf’s post. I understood it was his way of trying to be honest about the reception his twit received, even if it wasn’t entirely correct. From the scolds and their enablers, it was outrage, as they react to anything that doesn’t gush with adoration for #MeToo and social justice.

The other side of the reaction was to Judge Kopf’s twitter skills, which were, ahem, not finely honed. He took to a format which is best left to cat gifs and praise for someone without far better appreciation of how to communicate in the medium. And his admission that his twit left much to be desired came from friends, myself included, not because of what he had to say but because of how he said it. While twitter can be forgiving if you give the insipid children tummy rubs, it can be brutally harsh if you have something unpleasant to say.

Even so, 123 responses*, most of which had the intellectual rigor of a lean-in circle, is, well, not quite a news story.

Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf has apologized in a blog post this week for his tweet regarding Law Clerks for Workplace Accountability, which recently formed in response to harassment reports within the federal judiciary, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Was Judge Kopf’s post about his apologizing? It’s true that there was a line, within his other 2000 or so words, that included an apology. but there were still those other 2000 or so words. What happened to them?

As was expressed in a comment by an anonymous law professor to Judge Kopf’s post, the failure of the woke and their enablers to address his points are manifest.

I apologize for writing this anonymously, but I lack the desire to be attacked by that vicious and disingenuous group of young lawyers and their enabling academics who refuse to engage with you on a substantive level and instead attack you for perceived past transgressions and strawmen.

You have provided cogent reasons for your views, which as usual reflect your values of realism and transparency. There is certainly room for disagreement, but they refuse to engage with you and prefer to attack you from afar, within their own bubble where they will receive nothing but mindless applause in return.

The treatment you’ve received is not merely sad, but unforgivable. You deserve better, if for no other reason than your willingness to weather their storm of outrage. Their refusal to face you, and your points, reflects the very point you make, that this is just a self-righteous mob determined to use attacks to cow the judiciary and force it to bend to its will. Thank you for being braver than I am and expressing your views.

Except their “own bubble” now extended to two Nebraska papers, both of which told stories about Judge Kopf’s “apologies,” plus his “rap sheet” of prior controversial posts that hurt the feelings of the terminally shallow, without any effort to mention, no less address, the substance of the issue or Judge Kopf’s points raised in his post. If you read only the stories in the Omaha World-Herald or the Lincoln Journal-Star, you would have absolutely no clue what issues were in play or what the countervailing arguments might be. You would only know that Kopf apologized, that Kopf was wrong again, challenging the woke with his reasons.

Is there any interest in learning, in hearing, what a federal judge has to say about issues? The clerks are entitled to express their thoughts, even if they remain simplistic, passive-aggressive and grounded in the typical narcissism that only a lawprof or mother can adore. But if the reaction is to attack him for being perpetually insensitive to social justice and fragile feminism, then the response is you don’t want to know. You only want tummy rubs of approval.

It’s not that the Omaha World-Herald’s Emily Nitcher lied in her story. The quotes are there, accurate. It’s that she put her name to a story that only a child could write, lifting a sentence from the middle and studiously ignoring the substance. Then again, at least she had the guts to put her name to her drivel, which is more than whoever wrote the Lincoln Journal-Star did.

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with Judge Kopf’s views. I do so all the time, and yet have always appreciated the fact that Judge Kopf has been willing to share them, to be real and transparent even if not always funny or consistent with what the woke children wish he would write. That’s reality. If you don’t want to hear it, see it, then spend your life on the twitters. Or read Emily Nitcher’s inch-deep think piece.

As for me, I want to continue to know what federal judges are thinking, even if I don’t agree with them. And I would rather deal with their actual points rather than deliberately misleading stories. And as for Judge Kopf, he should stick to pics of his grandchildren and otherwise leave twitter to the kidz. He sucks at it, and more importantly, can’t express thoughts we would do well to hear and consider that are better said here.

*Of course, the number of replies is relative to the number of people who replied multiple times. And then there were the “likes” and “RTs,” which go unmentioned. If you’re going to use twitter as a measure of anything, then it would seem a little better to assess it honestly. But a dozen interlocutors, roiled by an “inartful” twit that challenged their feelings, isn’t exactly the measure of much of anything considering the many thousands of others who saw no reason to reply.

13 thoughts on “The Kopf Story Written, But Not Quite The Kopf Story

  1. Skink

    This is just an extension of the silence to Judge Kopf’s post here. You often say thinking is hard, and some folks don’t want to do it. But this doesn’t take much thought: just read what was written, maybe chase the links and do a search. It takes minutes, and probably fewer than reading what someone said was said based on what someone else thought what was said because another someone read something some guy in Australia thought of it all.

    The real hard work is in avoiding direct dialog on the real issues. They must be exhausted.

    1. SHG Post author

      What scares the living shit out of me isn’t that people disagree, whether with Judge Kopf, me, you or anyone else, but how few people face up to the substance. It’s like they’re all 12-year-olds screaming “your mother wears army boots.” Between lawyers, academics and journalists, is there no one left with the intellectual honesty to both face the real issues and address them? Do they at least realize their childish distortions and fallacious arguments are full of shit, or do they actually believe their deluded nonsense?

      1. REvers

        Intellectual honesty has been a rarity for some time now. I’m used to that. I read appellate opinions, after all.

        What I’m not used to is the seeming lack of intellectual ability. There has to be something in the water, or in the air, or in the food supply that just makes people stupid. Not ignorant, but stupid.

        That’s what scares the living shit out of me.

        1. SHG Post author

          Me too. Many years ago, I read an op-ed in Newsday and wrote a letter to the editor that went something like this: There are many good arguments for and against this issue. It’s a shame that your writer knows none of them. That would be considered hate speech today.

      2. Skink

        They have no concern about making direct responses. Their wont is to react to the reaction of others–they just run with it–they report the reaction, never the substance. I don’t think it has anything to do with belief as you and I consider the word. It’s something to talk about or report without having to do much work. It’s an easy score. The ramifications of repeating nonsense are of no consideration because it’s just about grabbing junk and passing it along.

        It can be a mistake to place all this activity in the realm of a belief system. Very often, it’s just laziness. Freud and the cigar is appropriate. Regardless the hype, the Internet and social media don’t make people smarter, but they sure make it easier to think lazily.

      3. PseudonymousKid

        But then we’d have to click links and do work. I barely have time to post a reaction video of my face while reading Judge Kopf’s tweet before having to move on to the next outrage. My “shock” face is really wearing out. Besides, you don’t get to dictate that the story be about facts and substance. The substance that matters is that people are pissed at Kopf again. So, yep, deluded nonsense.

  2. B. McLeod

    More “advocacy journalism.” The goal has long since ceased to have anything to do with accuracy or informing the public.

  3. John Barleycorn on Gnarly

    Well, at least Emily included some links, one to SJ even…so put your 16 year old pants on already.

    Besides its only caught the “internet’s ire”…. so there is that too.

    As per the LJS piece, WTF?! is the world coming to when you can’t even send some intern on over to the Robed Riders house to take a few pics over the back fence of him kicking back on his deck in sandals while sporting some plaid linen boxer shorts and an ironed wife beater t-shirt? *

    *Pro Tip: You never know when these sort of photos will happen-the paparazzi has to eat after all- so it is always best to have your pellet gun securely nestled in its rack on the movable wet bar, and a copy of some Hemingway or McMurtry novel with the binder clearly visible next to the cutting board. And It should go without saying, but keep your damn toenails trimmed. “Picking on clerks” is one thing but gnarly toenails, well….gnarly toenails are the sort of thing that will make it onto the front page of that newspaper the esteemed one reads everyday.

    1. SHG Post author

      A dozen shit-for-brains on the twitters get their panties in a twist, while thousands of grown up lawyers see Judge Kopf’s issues as obvious to the point of banality. So what’s the story?

      And lose the toenail commentary or you get trashed next time. There’s only so much idiocy I can take from you.

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