[TaxRelief]

Agreed, the remark was flippant. Sometimes humour is used to relax people who are nervous. In this case he may have hit upon something, which would explain why she freaked out.

Either way, this was not a random middle-eastern person, this was a parent of a Democratic activist, who is now caught up in the college scene. This is a rather blatant attempt at smear: QB-7 all the way.

[Herodotus]

I wonder what the court reporter transcribed. We haven't heard whether there was one or not.

There's always more to the story than we really know (I'll be the first to admit that!) but it's just plain stupid to make fun of someone's last name, doubly so to call them a terrorist. He's free to say whatever he wants, but he has a responsibility to act with decorum as a judge. We expect no less of judges who hold the Republican conviction and are supposed to be above the kind of petty things we've come to expect from Democrats these days.