Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Althouse

Legal Commentary

: Althouse

Instapundit says "this sort of thing should happen more often"... but should it?

"Barney Frank gets a high-altitude haranguing on health care. Two women ophthalmologists, whom Frank?s partner, Jim Ready, dismissed as 'bitchy; ? which really set them off. Frank got an earful. As far as I?m concerned, these guys shouldn?t be able to go anywhere without getting an earful. Luckily for Ready he?s the partner of a gay Democrat, because if he were a Republican that remark would have been sexist."

At the linked article, I see that "high-altitude" signifies that Frank was riding in an airplane at the time. It wasn't a political event, just normal transportation, and Frank was initially polite and said that he didn't like to talk on planes. He wanted to read. The women kept talking louder and louder to intrude on Frank anyway, which is pretty unfair to the other passengers on the plane. The "bitchy" remark, which sounds apt, was nevertheless stupid and impolitic, and it stirred things up, again to the detriment of other passengers.

"No one was calming things down and people were standing up shouting," said Brooke Sexton, who was seated seven rows behind Barney....

You really cannot have this kind of environment on an airplane.

"The women had been drinking, and they were crying and shouting," Sexton said. "They were clearly the antagonizers, and Mr. Frank was kind of minding his own business."...

So "this sort of thing should happen more often"? I think not.

ADDED: "Mr. Frank was kind of minding his own business." An obvious rejoinder: It's not his business. It's the people's business. But I'm sticking to my position: It's an airplane.

Full post as published by Althouse on April 13, 2010 (boomark / email).