Friday, April 25, 2008

Supreme Indifference

Just as the '08 election heads for a Democratic-Republican choice, Antonin Scalia comes out from behind the robes to tell us on 60 Minutes this weekend to stop moping about the Supreme Court's award of the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000.

"Get over it," he says in an interview with Lesley Stahl. "It’s so old by now." He may be right. The war in Iraq, the wrecking of our economy, the usurping of traditional American legal rights are so yesterday.

But Scalia himself is a living reminder of what's at stake in this year's election beyond all the mumbo-jumbo of the campaigns--the president's power to name Supreme Court Justices.

If Obama or Clinton is in the White House, it probably won't be someone who goes duck-hunting with Dick Cheney as he is considering a case over the Vice President's meetings with industry officials, including Enron's Ken Lay, while formulating the Administration's energy policy.

Meanwhile, not to worry about Scalia's role on the Court: "I am a law-and-order guy," he tells Stahl. "I mean, I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases."

Now that is something it make take some time to get over.

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