Recently AmCop readers offered an outpouring of suggestions for things judges might wear in lieu of the traditional, boring secular black robe. Well, it seems the rest of America has responded with equal enthusiasm on the matter of judicial fashion:

Judge's robe gets national attention
McKathan's office is getting supportive phone calls from all over the country

ANDALUSIA -- Two days after Presiding Circuit Court Judge Ashley McKathan donned a robe in court displaying the Ten Commandments on his chest, staffers were busy fielding calls from media outlets and supporters across the nation.

"We've had calls from Texas, Washington state, Arkansas, California, New Jersey and Tennessee, plus the local calls," explained McKathan's secretary, Susan Sansom, looking over a legal pad listing the callers early on Wednesday. "Every one of them is supportive of what the judge has done. We have not had a single complaint called in."

Then there were media calls from local papers, radio and television and even the CNN and MSNBC cable news networks. The south Alabama judge seemed a bit surprised at how quickly word of his gold-lettered robe traveled.

"This is only the third day," he said, smiling and still wearing the robe during a break in court proceedings. "I expected a little stir, but I never dreamed it would go so far so fast."

.....

McKathan's secretary said he decided somewhere around the end of October to order the robe, paying for it with his own money. He then hired a local seamstress to embroider the Ten Commandments in bold letters on the front, she said.

McKathan said he even shopped for a robe with fewer pleats to better accommodate the sewing.

Ashley, you sly fashion-hound, you!

The judge said he wants the scriptural foundation of modern law to be acknowledged. Without the biblical "truth" he said, "there is no law."

.....

Most people in Andalusia's downtown interviewed Wednesday supported McKathan and his stand. Residents said they respect authority, but at the same time admire people brave enough to buck authority for causes they champion.

"I read about it in the paper," said Shannon Thomas, who lives in nearby Sanford. "It's true the laws we have today are based on the Ten Commandments. But there is a difference in sinning and breaking the law. I really don't think there is anything wrong with him doing it. As long as he's going by the law, what he's got on his robe isn't going to affect anything."

"As long as he's going by the law, what he's got on his robe isn't going to affect anything." And yet what he's got on his robe is...The Law. Um, like, my head's spinning from tyring to parse this out. Is Kafka in the house?

Andalusia is a well-kept town McKathan described as "well-grounded" with Christmas displays featuring snowflakes, Santa and trees in the town square. A monument to fallen policemen featured a scriptural reference, but the only other religious signage invited motorists to "honk if you love the newborn king" -- posted by a religious radio station on a building. [Italics mine; one images that without such "displays" the town would lose its grounding and drift off into an etheral, pagan, Andalusian nowhere-land.]

Here, many people said, McKathan is a well-respected, even beloved homegrown son.

Family friend Fred Kelley Sr. said he knew 46-year-old McKathan's father and grandfather as "the finest people you ever have met." McKathan, he said, is of the same caliber. "If you are looking for something bad about him, you won't find it."

Indeed. What about the fact that he's a) crazier than a shithouse rat and b) a megalomaniac, narcissist and certified flaming asshole? Don't those count as "something bad"?