What makes Scalia qualified to be chief justice?

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04342/422906.stm

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have," Mark Twain once said, "the man looked honest enough."

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is no Twain, but he could have been paraphrasing America's greatest writer when he weighed in on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's intelligence recently.

"I cannot dispute the fact, as I have said, that this is one smart guy," Reid told Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press" a couple of days ago. "And I disagree with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reasons for arriving at those results are very hard to dispute."

How's that for a critique of right-wing jurisprudence? Reid doesn't agree with Scalia about anything, but he can't muster the brain power it takes to refute him. Oh, I'm feeling really confident about the new Senate minority leader.

[Maat]

1. Actually, although he is intelligent...

he comes across, reading his opinions, as a shameless shill for the hard right...and his reasoning does not jive with his aim, he does seem to be able to recite historic legal principles and seems to be very intelligent, if utterly twisted.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. I think Harry Reid should be replaced by Dick Durbin, ASAP!!! n/t

[Mike Niendorff]

3. Scalia isn't qualified to be dogcatcher, let alone Chief Justice.

To me, one of the major tests of a legal mind is whether they can spot the disingenuousness that's so pervasive in the opinions of Scalia and his right-wing cohorts. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it, but it does take a reasonably close and careful reading of the opinions in question. One of the things that frustrated me most about my year at Harvard was the way that they set things up to discourage this kind of in-depth study. Slog through 300 pages a night, cram with the case-notes, and pretend that this constitutes education. It doesn't. A competent law student MUST be able to spot bad-faith argument, and that requires close reading, attention to faithful citation, and a host of other things that get lost in the rush and the crunch anymore. The net result is that bad-faith activists like Scalia have a much easier time getting away with logical and textual sleights of hand than they would in a more rigorous legal environment.


MDN

[Skittles]

4. he is buddy to the bushes

nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. He does good cronyism.

Or he did. Now that he's getting called on it, the man is shocked, SHOCKED that in this country cronyism is suspect, especially for a judge.

[indepat]

6. Didn't he promote orgies?

[madison2000]

7. Scalia thinks all mothers should stay home and bake cookies

He said so when he was at University of Chicago Law School. Great guy to have teaching professional women and sitting on the Supreme Court.