“On May 23, [Rosalie] Whiley’s attorneys poked fun at [Governor Rick] Scott’s claim to “supreme executive power” by suggesting that “the Governor’s theory seems to have come from a Monty Python skit. See the discourse between ‘Arthur, King of Britons’ and ‘Dennis the Constitutional Peasant,’ from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
In that scene from the 1975 cult classic comedy, King Arthur explains to Dennis, a filth-covered peasant, that Arthur rules over all Britons because a mystical Lady of the Lake “held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.” Dennis responds: “Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony … You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power because some watery tart threw a sword at you.”
There’s nothing wrong with courts and attorneys having a sense of humor, said [attorney and former FSU President Sandy] D’Alemberte, who wrote the Monty Python brief. “I’m not accusing the governor of going quite as far as the Arthur character in Monty Python went… but he does assert in [a subsequent order, issued April 8] this idea of supreme executive power as though it’s magic.” The Python sketch, he added, “is still one of the funniest pieces I’ve ever seen.”
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