Suspicious behavior

I was surprised to read in a late breaking bulletin this morning of the arrest of candidate for the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor. Apparently she had been seen trying to force open the front door of her downtown New York City apartment building. It later came out that the door was temporarily jammed, but meanwhile the sight of this latina woman fiddling with an apparently locked door had apparently aroused the suspicion of a neighbor who lived on the same fashionable Greenwich Village street.

It is not entirely clear what transpired next. According to NYC police officer James Shepard, when he entered Sotomayor’s home and asked to see her identification, the judge “began acting weirdly”. As Shepard later told the sympathetic hosts of a right-wing radio talk show, Sotomayor started dancing the salsa around the apartment and loudly singing the song “America” from “West Side Story”, in spanish. Then, according to officer Shepard, the 54 year old woman brandished a switch blade and said to him “You gonna get out now or I gotta cut you?”

It was at this point, according to officer Shepard, that he invited Sotomayor to step outside so that the two of them could continue their conversation out in the street – apparently a standard request that the police make when they have just tried to arrest somebody for breaking into their own home. But at this point something unexpected happened – David Axelrod, top advisor to president Barack Obama, showed up at the door, apparently for a scheduled meeting with Judge Sotomayor.

According to officer Shepard, Axelrod – who is Jewish, although the police officer hastened to add that the man’s ethnicity was irrelevant – took one look at the police officer and began cursing in what sounded like Hebrew, although officer Shepard reported that it might also have been a dialect of ancient Aramaic, like in that movie.

Mr. Axelrod then somehow produced a live chicken, which he proceeded to twirl over his head while pointing at the dumbfounded police officer and muttering what sounded like Kabbalistic incantations. It was at this point, according to officer Shepard, that he made the decision to arrest both of them on charges of disturbing the peace. Charges of bribery were later added for Mr. Axelrod when, as officer Shepard explained it, the well-known political consultant pulled him aside and offered to sell him major-brand electronics equipment “at below wholesale prices”.

The New York City police later decided to release both suspects. In a press conference from the White House blue room, president Obama called the officer’s response “stupid”, but then relented and invited the three of them to the White House to talk it over.

The President was quoted as saying “This has all apparently been a misunderstanding, nothing that can’t be resolved amicably over a cuba libre and, um, some Manischewitz.”