It's not every day that a new Supreme Court Justice nominee is named, but President Barack Obama's announcement of Merrick Garland was historic for one other reason as well. According to Obama himself, Garland is a bit of a comic book geek.
Or, at least he was back in the day. During a televised rose garden ceremony at the White House, President Obama introduced his nominee by giving viewers a little bit of Garland's backstory.
"He put himself through Harvard Law School by working as a tutor, by stocking shoes in a shoe store, and in what is always a painful moment for any young man, by selling his comic book collection," Obama said, at which point Garland put his hand over his heart. "It's tough. Been there."
It's true, he has. Obama has mentioned on more than a few occasions his love for Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics back in his youth, so it's only natural that he would seek out a fellow recovering geek for his Supreme Court nominee.
Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Garland served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, worked as a federal prosecutor and worked as an aide to Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. That long list of credentials probably didn't have anything to do with it.
There are still a number of questions that need answering. Exactly how much money did Garland make off his comic collection? Harvard Law School isn't cheap, so he must have made a pretty penny. How many comics did he have?
However, the biggest question still remaining is this; just what kind of comics were in Garland's collection? Did he like Marvel or DC? Spider-Man or Batman? Captain America or Superman? These are important questions that need answers. Perhaps by carefully studying his onetime comic book collection, we can get a better understanding of how he might vote on various social and constitutional issues as a justice of the Supreme Court.
Not that the Republicans are going to let that happen, of course, but it sure would be a fun experiment to see play out. Maybe somebody can find his collection?
