by Adam Cohen
"You know what I say to those people? That's Sicilian."
—Justice Antonin Scalia
Justice Antonin Scalia has gone too far — and he keeps on doing it.
He made national headlines recently for making a gesture that may or may not be obscene. If it wasn't obscene, it was certainly coarse and undignified.
He recently called those who disagree with his unconventional views of the Constitution "idiots."
His public statements often make him sound more like a political partisan than a judge. He is particularly bad on the subject of Bush v. Gore, the decision that put President Bush in the White House, a low point in the Supreme Court's history that Justice Scalia should not be pulling down any lower.
Worst of all, Justice Scalia refuses to abide by the basic principles of recusal, the law that forbids judges from hearing cases in which they are not impartial, or will not be viewed as impartial. A few weeks ago, he took part in a case involving the rights of detainees after making inflammatory statements that seriously called his fairness into question.
Justice Scalia is certainly hurting his own reputation. After one of his ethical lapses involving Vice President Dick Cheney, Jay Leno joked on "The Tonight Show" about an "embarrassing moment" when Mr. Cheney visited the White House — "Security made him empty his pockets and out fell Justice Antonin Scalia!"
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Graphic seen at Bartcop.
Adam Cohen Scalia Cheney SCOTUS Bush v. Gore Bush Cohen
