Time for a little quiz!
Who posted comments online in which he (or she) declared that:
“Sluts are just whores in training.”
“Women look at 2 bulges on a man, one in the front of the pants or second one in the back pocket. Whichever one is bigger, they can do without the other.”
“What’s the most used line in Arkansas: daddy get off me you are crushing my cigarettes.”
Female college students are “sororostutes.”
Women expect special treatment because of their “golden vajay jays”
Khloe Kardashian is “black by injection.”
Your choices are:
Oprah
Paul Elam
Redditor “NaggerPlease”
Arkansas Circuit Judge Mike Maggio
So who was it? Let’s work through the alternatives. Unsurprisingly, it’s not Oprah; while she has referred to “vajay jays” she has not, as far as I know, referred specifically to golden ones, and the rest of the comments really don’t match her views at all.
Perhaps a little surprisingly, it’s not Paul Elam either, though he has many terrible opinions about sluts and whores.
NaggerPlease, meanwhile, is just a name I made up because it seems like the sort of “edgy” borderline-racist name some dude on Reddit would come up with. It turns out there actually is a NaggerPlease on Reddit, though they haven’t posted anything.
So, yep, the correct answer is actually Arkansas Circuit Judge Mike Maggio, who was recently outed as a regular commenter on a Louisiana State University fan message board called Tiger Droppings. Say hello, Mike!
Using the name “geauxjudge,” Maggio posted what seems to have been an endless stream of racist, misogynistic, homophobic and otherwise offensive comments on the board — many of them worse than the small sampling I’ve posted above. He also revealed confidential (alleged) details of an adoption hearing involving actress Charlize Theron. (For more of the comments and the gory details, see here and here.)
He’s now under investigation for all of this; revealing the alleged details of the Theron case were apparently quite a serious ethical violation.
In the wake of the outing, Maggio has withdrawn from a race for appellate judge and has offered up a rather impressively half-assed apology for his terrible comments:
I take full responsibility for the comments that have been attributed to me.
That’s a weirdly indirect way to admit you wrote the comments.
I apologize deeply for my lapse in personal judgment and for that, I have no excuse. The comments posted were not acceptable.
Well, it was a bit more than a lapse. It was lapse after lapse after lapse after lapse. But at least this sounds like an apology.
These comments are not a reflection of who I am.
Uh, how are the comments you just took “full resposibility for” not a reflection of you? Who are they a reflection of? Not-Me, the naughty ghost from The Family Circus?
During my life, I have prided myself in treating all fairly and with respect, both personally and professionally. … I ask for both yours and God’s forgiveness.
… for the “lapse” that isn’t really a reflection of who you are.
My actions are not indicative or illustrative of the conservative political philosophy of which I hold dear.
Huh. Then why does so much of it line up so precisely with the anti-woman, anti-gay and racist dogwhistle rhetoric of the far right today?
It is a shame that the politics of personal destruction take precedence along with the win at all costs mentality that results in the disjunction.
Uh, are you really using your alleged APOLOGY for your bigoted statements to attack the people who pointed out your bigotry? Do you not understand the concept of an apology?
At this time, in light of the pain I have caused to my family, friends, supporters, the Judicial Branch, and the public, I have requested that the Secretary of State remove me from the ballot.
I would ask you to respect my family’s need for privacy so we can being the healing process of forgiveness.
I think in order to merit forgiveness you have to actually stop being an asshole. Or at least make an effort in that direction.
Men’s Rights activists often complain that they are locked out of the political system in “gynocratic” America. But here is a gentleman who seems to share 90% of their ideology and who, pending the result of an investigation of his comments, is actually in a position of some real power within the system.
And like most MRAs I’ve ever dealt with, he takes no real responsibility for his shit when he gets called on it.
Embrace Mike Maggio, MRAs. He’s your poster boy. He’s you.
Note: Thanks to Pecunium for pointing me to this story.
Heh. I bet that Star Trek alien is just how the dudebros see women.
Wow. Not only does this duderino have the weirdest notions about older women’s sex lives, he also has no idea that vaginas are 100% self-cleaning. Meaning, NOBODY’s semen lasts more than 10 days, max, in there.
Biology: Learn some.
Typical “conservative” response (and I use that word, ‘conservative’, loosely, as guys like him aren’t “conserving” much more than their own money and power) — a half-assed apology, claiming that his words don’t reflect him, and then asking for forgiveness while showing no real sign of change. Reminds me of the way G. Todd Baugh, the “judge” who sentenced Stacey Rambold to 30 days in jail for the statutory rape of Cherice Moralez when she was 14 — which resulted in her killing herself when she was 16, before Rambold even went to trial. So, she was already dead, by her own hand (and a gun, if memory serves), and the “judge” had the temerity to say in open court that “she was in as much control of the situation” as Rambold was, and that she was “mature for her age” — a classic pedo-response.
And, of course, when he realized that the rest of the world was actually paying attention to the unconscionable words that he uttered — not to mention his heinous sentence of 30 days! — words were just coming out of his mouth, and he had no idea what was happening, but still defended his judgment of 30 days.
So, apparently, either Montana has a “judge” who succumbs to fits of blackouts combined with uncontrolled expressions of misogyny and pedophile-sympathy (which, of course, have no basis in his own thoughts and feelings), or he’s a misogynist ass. Which seems more likely?
I know this is really off topic, but it just really stank of the same formula response: These words came out of my mouth [or fingers, in “judge” Maggio’s case] but they have absolutely no connection to who I am as a human being (so to speak); now, God’ll forgive me, so all I need is for you to do the same.
Yeah, no god I’d believe in.
Unbefuckinglievable.
(Fun fact: “Unbefuckinglievable” is an example of “expletive infixation”!)
PS: Am I the only one who’s bothered by the fact that “geaux” in French (despite not being a French word) would be pronounced as [ʒo] (or, if the letter ezh doesn’t show up on your browser, {zho}, with the first consonant (zh) pronounced as the “s” in ‘leisure’ or ‘treasure’)? This isn’t exactly a criticism of Maggio, as this is an LSU thing, but I spent a year and a half in a highly immersive French class, and I’m pretty sure that if these people wanted a word that sounds like the English “go” but had a French spelling, “gau” or “gaux” would actually suit their purposes (as [go] rather than [goʊ], as in English, but close enough!).
Then again, maybe Cajun French observes different orthographic (or writing) rules.
Regarding his, “During my life, I have prided myself in treating all fairly and with respect, both personally and professionally. … I ask for both yours and God’s forgiveness.
and…
“I would ask you to respect my family’s need for privacy so we can being the healing process of forgiveness.”
Nope…
He can pride himself all he likes, but being fair, in fact, requires that one be able to be evenhanded in how one deals with others.
It’s possible he has done that, but from his statements (and the known cases of unfair decisions he has handed down from the bench) his sense of fair and the mandates of the law have not been in harmony.
As to the “healing process of forgiveness”, good luck with that. He’s made a public mess; that requires the public to forgive him, and I don’t see any need to do that; pending an actual apology, and some sense that he’s offering redress.
Because I forgiveness isn’t automatic. If you hurt me, I get to decide what counts as the required level of reparation before I consider the offense repaired.
This came up at a panel I was on this past weekend (it was about Codes of Conduct, as regards sexual harassment at SF/F conventions). Someone in the audience said that l’Affaire ReaderCon was because the victim wouldn’t accept the offender’s apology. Which is bullshit. That line of argument puts all the power in the hands of those who cause harm (be it by design, or accident). If the person who commits the assault gets to define the terms of repair then they get define what counts as, “legitimate” assault (i.e. it’s only offensive if they refuse to aplogise).
Which is poppycock. I, as the offended party, get to define what counts as sufficiency of apology. A larger organisation has the right to decide what level of response they take, but no one gets to tell me that an apology is adequate if I don’t agree (we were also told we were against people flirting/having fun/getting laid; given that one of the other panelists and I had a very flirtatious relationship; based on meeting a year ago; at that con… we laughed at the idea).
So the judge is shit out of luck if he thinks I am going to forgive and forget, just because he pretends mouthing the words (and invoking his religions magic words) is enough to make me shut up about what a shit he is.