The Week That Was: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Doesn’t Resign
Radar Online, a website that was once great and is now an eyeball-skewering tabloid, reported exclusively on March 4 that conservative Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John Roberts would be resigning. Roberts had served only five years of his life sentence and is 55 years old.
Radar Online had exclusively been told that Roberts (who has suffered seizures in the past) would be absconding for “personal reasons,” paving the way for Obama’s second Supreme Court appointee.
Other news outlets scrambled after the story, and some of us gleefully held our breath. We batted around ideas on the internet about what could be in Roberts’s closet. We have to admit that in this day in age the tabloids, especially the up-to-the-minute online outlets, are often the first to know the news.
Alas, quickly disproved, the post soon disappeared, and Radar retracted with a weak “Despite considering resigning from the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts will stay on the bench, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.”
If John Roberts had died, or had a love child or a drug problem “breaking,” TMZ and Radar Online and The National Enquirer would have outsourced and outpaced the papers of record.
Turned out it ’twas a tale of a Georgetown law professor making a point about the unreliability of sources and web-addicted, distracted students doing exactly what they weren’t supposed to do. The lesson therein: pay more attention in class. Stop surfing. Take notes. You’re studying to be servant of the law, for God’s sake.
On second thought, carry on. All is well.
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