Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th Circuit Court, was caught putting sexually explicit pictures on a government-owned computer at his office as he was about to preside over an obsenity trial. His explanation was that he didn’t realize the public could get access to the pictures. And he thought they were funny. (One of them depicts nude women painted to look like cows; another has a half-naked man cavorting with a sexually aroused barn animal; oh, you get the point.) He has spurned calls that he recuse himself from the case.
This guy is a character and has a well-established rep for being an unusual Republican–but this just goes to show, yet again, that some Republicans are really, truly, just hung up on sex . . .
June 11, 2008 at 9:54 pm |
He didn’t think it was obscene? He accidentally uploaded the images? As with Eliot Spitzer, I wonder what seemingly smart people are thinking unless they really do want to get caught.
June 12, 2008 at 9:39 am |
More from the SF Chron about Kozinski, a local guy:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/12/BAFT117O3S.DTL&tsp=1
June 12, 2008 at 10:33 am |
Well at least he isn’t a hypocrite since he is a staunch free speech supporter (including pornography).
“This guy is a character and has a well-established rep for being an unusual Republican–but this just goes to show, yet again, that some Republicans are really, truly, just hung up on sex”
So he likes porn. What is the problem?
June 12, 2008 at 11:34 am |
Yeah TT and there are plenty of Democrats who love porn too. I think the unusual nature of the porn and the stupid decision to have it available to the public are the real weird parts of the story. But most people are just interested because it is porn. We get a lot of hits when we have porn stories.
The problems with pornography itself are too many to mention here, but the fact that judges like it is no real big surprise (and lawyers and doctors and construction workers). The fact that men of all stripes (and women too I guess) find degradation and dehumanization of women a turn-on is the real problem. Not that this particular guy or that particular guy likes it.
June 12, 2008 at 12:12 pm |
And that Republicans are usually first in line to argue that porn needs to be regulated for everyone else while they are pretty voracious consumers of it makes Kozinski’s position a little awkward, to say the least . . .
I guess you could say that since Kozinski’s porn depicted men as well as women it was equal opportunity degredation. But yes, women apparently go for it on occasion–remember the Abu Girab photographs, anyone? Those were, among other things, pornographic.
June 12, 2008 at 1:28 pm |
“And that Republicans are usually first in line to argue that porn needs to be regulated for everyone else while they are pretty voracious consumers of it makes Kozinski’s position a little awkward, to say the least . . .”
He has never been among those who argued any such non-sense. In fact he has even led charges against laws that limited access to pornography under the banner of free speech rights.
Also, as Kozinksi has stated in the past of his political leanings:
“I disagree with the liberals on the bench half of the time,” he chuckles, “and the conservatives the other half.”
June 12, 2008 at 9:36 pm |
TT, I’m actually not going after AK so much as I’m going after the situation he’s created, which closely mimics the Ted Haggard/David Vitter/Larry Craig/etc. psycho-sexual mediadramas we’ve been subjected to lately. But NPR did report tonight that legal ethicists agree that he should not preside over this case since reasonable people might well conclude that his objectivity on the subject of obscenity might be in doubt. Do you disagree?
June 13, 2008 at 6:49 am |
“reasonable people might well conclude that his objectivity on the subject of obscenity might be in doubt. Do you disagree?”
Since I would almost guarantee his bias would tilt toward the defendant, I am not too worried. But yeah, he should probably recuse himself. But as I said before, this defendant has a better shot with Koz presiding than with almost anyone else that can fill that cushy black chair. It is a tremendous bit of bad luck for this defendant losing such a sympathetic judge.