Diva of Disdain: Justice Scalia in Three Parts
Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in March 1936, but he was conceived the previous summer in Florence, Italy. (His father, a doctoral student in romance languages at Columbia, had won a fellowship to travel there with his wife.) “I hated Trenton,” Scalia says; his heart belongs to Florence. A devotee of opera and hunting—“he loves killing unarmed animals,” observes Clarence Thomas—Scalia likes to cut a Medicean profile of great art and great cruelty. He peppers his decisions with stylish allusions to literature and history. Once upon a time, he enjoys telling audiences, he was too “fainthearted” an originalist to uphold the eighteenth century’s acceptance of ear notching and flogging as forms of punishment. Not anymore. “I’ve gotten older and crankier,” he says, ever the diva of disdain ...
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/06/26/diva-of-disdain-justice-scalia-in-three-parts/
Justice Scalia: American Nietzsche
... To answer the second question—does riding in a golf cart “fundamentally alter the nature” of golf—the majority undertook a thorough history of the rules of golf. It then formulated a two-part test for determining whether riding in a cart would change the nature of golf. The dutifulness and care, the seriousness with which the majority took its task, both amused and annoyed Scalia ...
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/06/27/justice-scalia-american-nietzsche/
Affirmative Action Baby
... The fact may be small and personal, but the irony is large and political. For Scalia preys on and profits from the very culture of liberalism he claims to abhor: the toleration of opposing views, the generous allowances for other people’s failings, the “benevolent compassion” he derides in his golf course dissent. Should his colleagues ever force him to abide by the same rules of liberal civility, or treat him as he treats them, who knows what might happen? Indeed, as two close observers of the Court have noted—in an article aptly titled “Don’t Poke Scalia!”—whenever advocates before the bench subject him to the gentlest of gibes, he is quickly rattled and thrown off his game. Prone to tantrums, coddled by a different set of rules: now that’s an affirmative action baby ...
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/06/28/affirmative-action-baby/
