Justice Scalia and the Tea Party

[groovedaddy]

When the Tea Party holds its first Conservative Constitutional Seminar next month, Justice Antonin Scalia is set to be the speaker. It was a bad idea for him to accept this invitation. He should send his regrets.

The Tea Party epitomizes the kind of organization no justice should speak to — left, right or center — in the kind of seminar that has been described in the press. It has a well-known and extreme point of view about the Constitution and about cases and issues that will be decided by the Supreme Court.

By meeting behind closed doors, as is planned, and by presiding over a seminar, implying give and take, the justice would give the impression that he was joining the throng — confirming his new moniker as the “Justice from the Tea Party.” The ideological nature of the group and the seminar would eclipse the justice’s independence and leave him looking rash and biased.

There is nothing like the Tea Party on the left, but if there were and one of the more liberal justices accepted a similar invitation from it, that would be just as bad. This is not about who appointed the justice or which way the justice votes. Independence and the perception of being independent are essential for every justice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/opinion/19sun3.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a211

[fascisthunter]

1. he along with three others should be impeached

[Jackpine Radical]

2. There is nothing Scalia could do

that would give him a false image of being rash and biased.

[yodermon]

3. Not only would it be just as bad if a liberal justice did it, s/he

would be flayed alive in the press for it.
With scalia, it's a big ho-hum, that's-just-how-it-is-with-him, move along now.

[Kber]

4. Thx for posting.