Stalking Scalia

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Today's Ronald Cass piece is a great read that covers the media sensationalism flanking Justice Scalia:

One of the week's big news stories was the dramatic account of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, accosted outside a Boston Mass, using a Sicilian hand gesture to explain what he would say to people who question his very public commitment to Catholicism. The implicit question wasn't whether it was alright for a judge to be a practicing Catholic. Instead, it was whether Scalia was improperly committed to positions on cases coming before the Court. Especially on matters like abortion, where the Catholic Church has an official position.

Yet publicly committing to a position - or to a set of beliefs and interpretations - is exactly what liberal Senators and the interest groups that support them were demanding during the recent confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. No one on the Left seemed concerned that the nominees would be open to criticism, or even recusal, if they declared on the record that the Constitution contained a right to privacy that protected women seeking abortions from state interference or if they embraced a particularly expansive vision of such a right.

Despite the media virtually ignoring the nap Justice Ginsburg took during oral arguments two weeks ago, it never lets go of Scalia because, as Cass notes, "Scalia is the leading voice for a set of legal propositions that run counter to the political, social, and constitutional agenda of the dominant voices in almost every major element of America's Speaking elites."

Liberal blogger Atrios, a proud atheist (go figure), has suddenly become offended that Scalia might have made an improper gesture inside a church: "In other words, he didn't just make the sign for 'f**k you' he said 'f**k you.' In church. What will we tell the children."

I can't blame the justice for dismissing the reporter with that (hardly explicit) gesture, for he did not want to be bothered while attending religious services. He is routinely hounded to a greater degree than any other justice, by a mob of media elites who couldn't hold a candle to Scalia's intellectual capacity.