My favorite Scalia story is from Ted Cruz’s book A Time for Truth. This took place in 1986, when the departure of Warren Burger had created a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and it was clear that attorney general Ed Meese would be President Reagan’s most influential advisor on choosing a nominee. According to Cruz:
Everyone knew that two of the stars on the conservative side, and thus possible nominees, were Robert Bork and Scalia, both on the D.C. Circuit. So one day Scalia was walking in a parking garage at the appellate court when two U.S. marshals stopped him. “Sorry, sir,” one of them said. “We’re holding this elevator for the attorney general of the United States.”
Scalia pushed past them, entered the elevator, and pressed a button. As the doors closed, Scalia shouted out, “You tell Ed Meese that Bob Bork doesn’t wait for anyone!”
I am expecting Obama to appoint another incompetent leftist like Sotomayor or Kagan, and for Cruz to lead a Senate campaign to Bork him or her or whatever pronoun is preferred.
Hilarious.
Roger, Scalia didn’t think Kagan was incompetent.
Scalia is dead. You do not know what he thought.
Kagan is the least accomplished one on the court, and was an ideological appointment. She has no legal theories that anyone takes seriously. But she is a reliable vote for leftist causes.
Fair enough; I guess we might say that of anyone, dead or alive.
Yet there’s ample evidence that Kagan and Scalia chose to share each other’s company even when not on the bench. As a man who did not suffer fools gladly, it’s noteworthy that Scalia chose Kagan as a hunting buddy. Admittedly, Scalia and Cheney were also hunting buddies, so take that for what you will.
Moreover, David Axelrod reports that Scalia lobbied the Clinton Administration to get Kagan – some who, at that time, had never fired a gun – onto the Supreme Court.
Again, I guess we still can’t know definitively what Scalia thought of Kagan – but we can certainly cast doubt on the idea that he thought ill of her.
Roger, “Let’s dispell with this notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing, he knows exactly what he’s doing.”
Obama is not going to reach here. He’s going to appoint Sri who was confirmed in the Senate 97-0. So
“Let’s dispell with this notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing, he knows exactly what he’s doing.”
Daniel I think you’re supposed to repeat that line a few more times :)
Some decidedly uncharitable things being said out there (not here)…seems to me the late justice provided a neat litmus test of one’s ability to recognize a separation between a) one’s personal values and moral views, and b) one’s interpretation of which values and views the (federal) government is empowered to enforce. Reminds me a little of the foreward Chomsky once wrote defending the free speech rights of a holocaust denier (a stance which, regrettably, Chomsky came to regret). For some this seems to conveniently simplify to the tenet that belief in limited government means one doesn’t care about people. IMHO this is currently the biggest contributor to our dysfunctional public discourse.
iceman: “the biggest contributor to our dysfunctional public discourse”.
Actually I think the biggest contributor is the common belief that ad hominem arguments are sound.
But it’s so much easier to call someone mean or evil or stupid than to address their ideas on the merits