Bench Memos

Of Monkeys and Metaphors

First I read it in the New York Times this morning, but it didn’t hit me.  Then my coffee kicked in, and by the time I was reading the Washington Post, I was awake enough to say “huh?”  It seems that yesterday, during oral argument at the Supreme Court–the context is unimportant–Justice Stephen Breyer said that if a certain course of reasoning were to be adopted, “we are not just throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of government contracting; we’re throwing the whole monkey.”

Oh dear.  Does Justice Breyer think that a monkey wrench comes with a monkey attached?  And I don’t want to think about the mess that ensues when the monkey goes into the gears . . .

Matthew J. Franck is retired from Princeton University, where he was a lecturer in Politics and associate director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He is also a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, a contributing editor of Public Discourse, and professor emeritus of political science at Radford University.
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