supreme court justices, supreme court clerks, and stand up comedians

i just saw the movie 'funny people'. i just read various supreme court related wikipedia entries.

in the movie 'funny people', i realized the more successful a comedian gets, the more he relies on others to produce material. i understand how more daily comedians, i.e. conan, letterman, etc, have a staff of writers backing them, but just in general it kind of surprises me, this reliance on others for bits.

along the same lines, i was reading the wikipedia entry on harry blackmun. fascinating guy. started off very conservative then becoming more and more liberal as it relates to 'unenumerated individual rights' post- roe v. wade in which he penned the majority opinion. anyways, the relation here is that he had probably the most liberal stance with respect to his clerks writing his opinions. in a few key examples, dissents in planned parenthood v. casey and bowers v. hardwick, his clerks were given control out of respect for their effective arguments and passion for the particular point of law at stake. granted, he must have agreed with the direction in order to to cede that kind of control and thne put his name on it, but, still...i think it's at least interesting to note not only how these disparate professions are similar, but to show the amalgamated community that goes into making each of us as individuals, even those at the top of their game.