Scalia and Cheney go a-huntin'

[Gentle Giant]

You know, the problem with the Republicans and conservatives in charge in Washington isn't that they're stupid or even evil; it's that they're so completely fucking arrogant.


Scalia's hunting trip brings questions
His outing with Cheney and others stirs critics

By Adam Nossiter, Associated Press, 2/6/2004

MORGAN CITY, La. -- For many hunters, duck season in the swamps of Louisiana means an outing with a pickup and a six-pack. For Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Vice President Dick Cheney, it was a little different.

The two men arrived near this coastal town in a US government jet, then were whisked away in a motorcade with police lights flashing to the elaborate floating hunting camp of a multimillionaire oil-services tycoon, a longtime friend of Scalia's.

A panoply of Secret Service and local law enforcement guarded the hunting party, and though the shooting was poor, the "strictly social" occasion, as participant Louis Prejean described it, was enjoyable.

But last month's trip has raised growing questions about the propriety of a Supreme Court justice going on a hunt with Cheney at the same time Scalia was hearing a case involving the vice president.

Congressional Democrats and newspaper editorials have called for Scalia to step down from the case, which has to do with whether Cheney must reveal who serves on his energy task force. Further complicating the question: The host of the hunting trip is a prominent member of the energy industry.

Scalia has declined to recuse himself, saying he remains impartial. He likened the hunting trip to a White House dinner.

Kevin Kellems, Cheney's press secretary, said Scalia's objectivity is "really a question that the Supreme Court officials are in better position to answer. This is really, at its core, a question about how the court operates, what their rules are and so forth."

Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said it would be "an easy call" for Scalia to disqualify himself because Cheney apparently paid at least some of the justice's expenses.

"He has to set an example of what conduct is acceptable. Taking a gift from a litigant in a case before you and taking a trip with that litigant in a small group" is not acceptable, Gillers said.

Several people in the party, including host Wallace Carline and Prejean, declined to discuss the trip into the marshland at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. But this was no ordinary hunting trip.

After landing Jan. 5, the party hurried out of a small blue-and-white jet marked "United States of America" and ducked straight into vehicles that had been flown down separately. With flashing lights that illuminated the rainy afternoon, the caravan made its way south to Carline's camp in the marshes.

There, Scalia and Cheney joined a group of about nine, the justice has said. Among them were relatives of Carline's son-in-law, Mike Swiber, who works for Carline's Diamond Services Corp., which provides barges, tugs, and dredging equipment. "I have no comments, no comments at all," Swiber said. "It's over."

Carline's place on the marsh is more a boat than a camp. A Carline competitor and friend, Doyle Berry, described it as a barge about 150 feet by 50 feet that anchors wherever the hunting is best. On top is a houselike structure.

"It's a big camp, lovely camp," said another friend, local Republican lawyer Al Lippman.

Carline, a member of the local port authority, created his fortune from scratch more than four decades ago, friends said.

"He's a very private-type individual," Lippman said. He is also, apparently, a registered Democrat: The only Wallace Carline in the parish is so listed, according to a local voting official.

Scalia, an avid hunter, is a frequent visitor to Louisiana. His hunting companion is often Prejean, a state worker for the disabled and the brother of Sister Helen Prejean, the anti-death-penalty activist and author of "Dead Man Walking." In an interview, she has described confronting Scalia about his support for the death penalty.

The vice president left after two days, while Scalia stayed two more days.

Berry, echoing others here, said locals were just "honored the vice president came down and hunted." But legal analysts elsewhere said it is not that simple.

"The fact is that the vice president is not a nominal party to this litigation. He has a strong personal and political interest in the result. That's the long and the short of it for me," Gillers said.

[jesus marion joseph]

Scalia has never had the reputation of a shrinking violet, and many legal observers have pointed out his habit of "mocking" other justices in his dissenting opinions.

This is truly outrageous--Scalia should not have to be told to recuse himself. Then again, he was a part of the scam that created this faux presidency in 2000.

[Al in NYC]

Scalia is the biggest f**king joke on the Supreme Court bench (even more so than Thomas, who is just plain clueless), and is a shame and a blight on all of our judicial traditions. Scalia is outright bought-and-sold corrupt, and as GG points out is so shameless and arrogant that he does almost nothing to hide it. In a better world in a better country he'd be out on his ear and perhaps up on charges for undermining and perverting the democratic process.

[MRS]

Originally posted by Al in NYC
Scalia is the biggest f**king joke on the Supreme Court bench (even more so than Thomas, who is just plain clueless), and is a shame and a blight on all of our judicial traditions. Scalia is outright bought-and-sold corrupt, and as GG points out is so shameless and arrogant that he does almost nothing to hide it. In a better world in a better country he'd be out on his ear and perhaps up on charges for undermining and perverting the democratic process.

If anyone follows opinion closely, Rehnquist admonishes Scalia on record quite often. I couldn't agree with your sentiments more, Al, yet I used to ball with Clarence when I was younger and he's a good guy personally.

We need a fly on the wall at the Rehnquist/Bennett/Scalia/Bork poker games.

[Gordon B]

Originally posted by Michael Schaumann
If anyone follows opinion closely, Rehnquist admonishes Scalia on record quite often. I couldn't agree with your sentiments more, Al, yet I used to ball with Clarence when I was younger and he's a good guy personally.

We need a fly on the wall at the Rehnquist/Bennett/Scalia/Bork poker games.

Thomas gets an unfair rap, IMO, because he's black. I think he's much more thoughtful than he's given credit for being and is not a knee-jerk conservative at all. He's my favorite Justice. I greatly prefer him to Scalia or Rehnquist.

[BFrank]

I was afraid this story was going to fade away. I'm glad to see that it's having a second life.

[MRS]

Originally posted by Gordon B
Thomas gets an unfair rap, IMO, because he's black. I think he's much more thoughtful than he's given credit for being and is not a knee-jerk conservative at all. He's my favorite Justice. I greatly prefer him to Scalia or Rehnquist.

My favorite Justice will always be Harry Blackmun.

Originally posted by Gordon B
Thomas gets an unfair rap, IMO, because he's black...

• Gordon, I am really surprised that you would make such an uninformed statement. Thomas was appointed because he is black, he is criticized because his competence and intellect fall way short of the expectations inherent in this position. That was clear when Bush Sr. appointed him, and it has become increasingly evident since then. Your statement is actually outrageous, for it brings in a race factor that simply does not exist--I suggest you do some research on Thurgood Marshall and his many supporters--then weigh his accomplishments against Thomas. While you're at it, you might wonder if all of Thomas' African-American detractors also find him unacceptable because he is black.
  
  Sorry, but this is an absolutely ludicrous assertion.

[Gordon B]

Originally posted by Michael Schaumann
My favorite Justice will always be Harry Blackmun.

He's one of my least favorites becaues Roe v. Wade was a terribly written decision, without constitutional merit. I say this as somebody who believes that abortion should be legal until viability, percisely the position taken by Blackmun.

[Chris D]

My favorites keep retiring.

We need another Brennan!

[MRS]

Blackmun posited that such provision was peripheral of the constitution. In any event, I respectfully disagree and care not to delve further.

Ironically, since his appointment, I think Souter has proven the most insightful mind on the bench.

[BFrank]

NY Times
February 6, 2004
Scalia's Trip With Cheney Raises Questions of Impartiality
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — They may be old friends, but duck hunting together on a trip to Louisiana last month has brought Vice President Dick Cheney and Justice Antonin Scalia more than happy memories of a few days in the wild, bagging mallards and teal.

With Mr. Cheney as a defendant in a Supreme Court case involving his energy task force, legal ethics experts and Democrats in Congress say the trip, which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times, was inappropriate and should lead Justice Scalia to recuse himself from the case. A lawyer for one plaintiff, the Sierra Club, said he was considering a formal request to the court, asking that Justice Scalia recuse himself.

No evidence has emerged to suggest that Mr. Cheney and Justice Scalia discussed the case during their three days together, and no one has questioned their right to maintain a friendship. But critics have suggested that the timing of the trip, coming just three weeks after the court agreed to hear Mr. Cheney's appeal of an order requiring him to disclose members of an energy task force he led, created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest, prompting the calls for Justice Scalia to step aside.

"Frankly, I'm puzzled by it," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, in an interview on Thursday. "I know Justice Scalia well; he's a very intelligent person. He has to know that with similar tactics, in any state in the country, a State Supreme Court justice would have to recuse himself. It's Law School 101."

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and the chairman of the judiciary committee, declined to respond directly to the question of an appearance of a conflict. But he said in a statement that he was confident that Justice Scalia would "do the proper thing."

Mr. Cheney's office did not respond to questions sent by e-mail.

A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court said Justice Scalia was out of town and could not be reached for comment. However, in response to a question from The Los Angeles Times for an article on Jan. 17, Justice Scalia said, "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned." He added, "Social contacts with high-level executive officials (including cabinet officers) have never been thought improper for judges who may have before them cases in which those people are involved in their official capacity, as opposed to their personal capacity."

On Jan. 5, Mr. Cheney and Justice Scalia flew to Southern Louisiana to spend several days at a duck-hunting camp owned by Wallace Carline, a friend of both men and a Democrat, said the local sheriff, David A. Naquin of St. Mary Parish. Sheriff Naquin, who was involved in planning Mr. Cheney's visit, said the vice president, Justice Scalia and other friends of Mr. Carline hunted that afternoon and the next morning before rain cut their activities short.

After accounts of the trip circulated, Senator Leahy and another Democratic senator, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, wrote to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, questioning the appropriateness of Mr. Cheney's spending "extended time" in a social setting with Justice Scalia after the court agreed to hear an important case that involved the vice president as a defendant.

The letter suggested that "reasonable people will question whether that judge can be a fair and impartial adjudicator" of the case and asked what procedures were in place for justices to recuse themselves or, failing that, whether a justice could be removed if ethical issues arose.

Chief Justice Rehnquist answered several days later, saying ethical situations were covered by federal laws that govern judicial conduct. He said that the Supreme Court had no formal procedure for reviewing a decision by a justice in an individual case and that as long-standing court policy, individual justices decided for themselves whether it was proper to hear a case.

Recusals are not uncommon. Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University who specializes in ethics, said 14 cases were decided over the last four full terms by fewer than the full complement of nine justices. Justice Scalia has stepped aside from a case this term involving an appeals court decision that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional. Justice Scalia expressed a view about the decision before it was appealed.

David Bookbinder, the Washington legal director for the Sierra Club, said the trip "raises to another level" questions of whether Justice Scalia could fairly decide a case involving the vice president. Mr. Bookbinder said that the club would decide soon whether to ask Justice Scalia to recuse himself.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally posted by BFrank
"Frankly, I'm puzzled by it," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, in an interview on Thursday. "I know Justice Scalia well; he's a very intelligent person. He has to know that with similar tactics, in any state in the country, a State Supreme Court justice would have to recuse himself. It's Law School 101."

I wonder why Scalia wouldn't recuse himself based upon his prior friendship with Cheney. Not that I think it necessarily constitutes an actual conflict of interest, but oftentimes perceptions are more important than fact.

It is common practice in the lower courts in this area that a judge at least advise litigants when there is a *potential* conflict of interest due to past or present association with one of the parties or their counsel. This doesn't mean that they are *required* to recuse themselves, and most times I've seen it happen, the parties decline the judges' offer to recuse themselves.

[Al in NYC]

Originally posted by Gordon B
Thomas gets an unfair rap, IMO, because he's black.

I delayed reacting to this response to my earlier post, as I just couldn't come up with a civil answer to a statement that I find so thoroughly insulting on so many levels.

Thomas gets a very fair rap IMO for being one of the most regressive SC justices of recent times. He has shown by his own words a desire to take us back to a much more repressive time, and undo decades of precedent in the name of his reactionary and constituionally and historically dubious "philosophy." The fact that his decisions, and the few opinions he's written, are almost entirely in lockstep with his buddy, the corrupt Scalia, only makes it worse.

Thanks for posting that, Al. I was beginning to think that I was the only one who saw the racism in Gordon's post.

[Gentle Giant]

To think that these people have the power to affect the course of people's lives is beyond me....


Justice Scalia defends hunting trip with Cheney
By Gina Holland, Associated Press, 2/11/2004 11:12

WASHINGTON (AP) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia strongly indicated he will ignore calls to recuse himself from a court case involving his friend and hunting partner, Vice President Dick Cheney.

Scalia told a gathering at Amherst College on Tuesday night there was nothing improper about his accompanying Cheney to Louisiana last month to hunt ducks. The trip came three weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Bush administration's appeal in a case involving private meetings of Cheney's energy task force.

''It did not involve a lawsuit against Dick Cheney as a private individual,'' Scalia said in response to a question from the audience of about 600 people. ''This was a government issue. It's acceptable practice to socialize with executive branch officials when there are not personal claims against them. That's all I'm going to say for now. Quack, quack.''

Cheney wants to keep private the details of closed-door White House strategy sessions that produced the administration's energy policy. The administration is fighting a lawsuit brought by watchdog and environmental groups that contend that industry executives helped shape the administration's energy policy.

Democrats in Congress, some legal ethicists and dozens of newspaper editorials have called on Scalia to stay out of the case. None of the groups in the case has formally asked Scalia to recuse himself, though the Sierra Club has said it might.

Supreme Court justices, unlike judges on other courts, decide for themselves if they have conflicts, and their decisions are final.

Scalia had not publicly addressed the issue before his Tuesday speech in Amherst, Mass., where about a dozen people wearing black armbands protested. One held a sign that said ''Let's go hunting.''

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist had rebuffed Senate Democratic leaders last month who questioned the trip, saying that justices strive to follow federal laws that require judges to stay out of cases in which their impartiality might be questioned.

Other justices have been asked about the Cheney appeal. In Hawaii on Tuesday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would not say whether she thought Scalia should stay out of the case. While Ginsburg is one of the more liberal members of the court, she and the conservative Scalia are longtime friends.

Complimenting Scalia's hunting skills, Ginsburg told more than 300 people at a Rotary Club of Honolulu luncheon that a deer killed by her colleague made for mouthwatering venison served for New Year's, which the Scalias and Ginsburgs typically spend together.

''Justice Scalia has been more successful at deer hunting than he has at duck hunting,'' Ginsburg said to laughter.

[jesus marion joseph]

How the heck did Scalia get an invitation to Amherst College?

[Gentle Giant]

"Sophomore Dies in Kiln Explosion"

Where have you gone, Fawn Liebowitz?

[MRS]

Originally posted by jesus marion joseph
How the heck did Scalia get an invitation to Amherst College?

He's a longtime Dickinson scholar.


(just kidding)

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally posted by Michael Schaumann
He's a longtime Dickinson scholar.


(just kidding)

Ha ha! Good one!

"Deep in their albaster chambers......"

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally posted by jesus marion joseph
Ha ha! Good one!

"Deep in their albaster chambers......"

Check that: should be "Safe in their albaster chambers".

Check this out

[BFrank]

NY Times
March 19, 2004
Scalia Refusing to Take Himself Off Cheney Case
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, March 18 — Invoking history, law and the upper social strata of Washington, Justice Antonin Scalia said on Thursday that he would not remove himself from a case before the Supreme Court involving his good friend, Vice President Dick Cheney.

In a 21-page memorandum, a rare public explanation and rarer still for describing what it means to have friends in the highest of places, Justice Scalia said it was not improper that he hunted ducks in Louisiana with Mr. Cheney in January, just three weeks after the court agreed to consider the case.

Justice Scalia not only justified his participation in the case, he also disclosed new details of the trip. "I never hunted in the same blind with the vice president," he wrote.

He also recounted other cases in which presidents and justices socialized without concerns about appearance. Citing historical accounts, he wrote of a time when Justice Harlan F. Stone "tossed around a medicine ball with members of the Hoover administration mornings outside the White House," and when Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson "played poker with President Truman." And who could forget those days when Justice John Marshall Harlan and his wife sang hymns at the White House with President Rutherford B. Hayes or when Justice Byron R. White skied in Colorado with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy?

In a more contemporary glimpse into the coziness of Washington's elite, Justice Scalia wrote, "A rule that required members of this court to remove themselves from cases in which the official actions of friends were at issue would be utterly disabling." Many justices, he said, were appointed to the court precisely because they were friends with the president or other senior officials.

Justice Scalia argued forcefully that friendship is a basis for recusal only "where the personal fortune or the personal freedom of the friend is at issue," not a friend's actions on behalf of the government. As a result, he wrote, he had no justification to step aside. A Supreme Court justice's decision on recusal is final and cannot be challenged.

The case before the court that involves Mr. Cheney is the effort by the Sierra Club to force him to provide information about the energy task force he led as the Bush administration, in its early months, was formulating environmental policy. After an appeals court ruled in favor of the Sierra Club and another plaintiff, Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group, the administration appealed to the Supreme Court on behalf of Mr. Cheney. The club, alone, petitioned Justice Scalia to step aside, arguing that his participation in the Louisiana trip created the appearance of favoritism undermining "the prestige and credibility of this court."

But in an obvious jab at the Sierra Club's reasoning that social contact by justices compromises their objectivity, Justice Scalia noted almost sarcastically that two days before the club opposed Mr. Cheney's appeal to the court, the club's lead lawyer in this case, Alan B. Morrison, a friend of Justice Scalia for nearly 30 years, invited him to address his Stanford Law School class.

"It was an open invitation," Mr. Morrison said, acknowledging Justice Scalia's reference as a not-so-subtle reminder that friendships transcend even political lines.

In his decision, Justice Scalia also took issue with critics who would assume he could not rule impartially simply because Mr. Cheney accepted his invitation to hunt ducks and he accepted Mr. Cheney's invitation to fly to Louisiana on a government jet. An account of the trip was published in The Daily Review in Morgan City, La., in early January, and The Los Angeles Times subsequently reported on the potential conflict of Justice Scalia serving on the case involving Mr. Cheney.

"If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap," Justice Scalia wrote, "the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined."

David Bookbinder, the Washington legal director for the Sierra Club, criticized Justice Scalia's decision, calling it "a splendid example of how secrecy corrodes public trust and the integrity of government."

"If Justice Scalia believes the facts as he laid them out," Mr. Bookbinder added, "he should have released them two months ago before the public started to ask questions."

The decision also drew strong criticism from Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

"There is no question that the very fact of this episode had raised appearance and impartiality issues," Mr. Leahy said. "To many, the very fact that this vacation weekend happened while this decision was pending is enough to make the situation quack like a duck."

Decisions on recusals by Supreme Court justices are not unusual, but most are voluntary, rather than in response to a petition from a litigant. And most come without comment, let alone one as long as Justice Scalia's.

In choosing to offer an expansive rationale, Justice Scalia provided colorful details of the January duck hunting trip as well as a snapshot of a friendship that began when he and Mr. Cheney both worked in the Ford administration. Justice Scalia was an assistant attorney general and Mr. Cheney was White House chief of staff.

The trip, he wrote, had been planned for the court's winter recess — and long before the court agreed to hear the case involving Mr. Cheney. Mr. Cheney accepted the invitation, noting that national security required him to fly in a government jet, and he offered Justice Scalia the chance to ride along if seats were available. They were, for Justice Scalia, for one of his sons and a son-in-law.

In Louisiana, Justice Scalia said the hunting party numbered about 13, including Mr. Cheney, his staff and security detail. They hunted over three days in two boats and ate all their meals together.

"Sleeping was in rooms of two or three, except for the vice president, who had his own quarters," Justice Scalia wrote. "Hunting was in two- or three-man blinds. As it turned out, I never hunted in the same blind with the vice president. Nor was I alone with him at any time during the trip, except, perhaps, for instances so brief and unintentional that I would not recall them — walking to or from a boat, perhaps, or going to or from dinner."

"Of course," he added, "we said not a word about the present case."

He and his relatives stayed in Louisiana two days longer than Mr. Cheney, Justice Scalia said, flying back to Washington on a commercial flight from New Orleans.

He wrote: "Since we were not returning with him, we purchased (because they were the least expensive) round-trip tickets that cost precisely what we would have paid if we had gone both down and back on commercial flights.

"In other words, none of us saved a cent by flying on the vice president's plane."

[Gentle Giant]

Maybe I'm naive, but I just think it's plain wrong. And I would say the same about Ginsburg's affiliation with NOW. To be a justice, you have to be impartial, and being impartial means being unaffiliated with people and groups with political agendas that one can easily foresee could have business before the Court. If that means Scalia loses his drinking and hunting buddy, so be it. I'm more disgusted with Cheney; he's the one inviting him along with full knowledge that he has interests before the Court. How scummy is that?

[Uli]

I find Scalias arguments especially blue eyed cause to some extent the chaney/enron episode is partly about whether it's just "private business" when you talk about energy policy among friends.

What we have here is two arrogant scum bags who overestimate their own importance. Like Bush, both have obtained positions of power which they regularly abuse and neither seems to recognize his inherent responsibilities to the American people.

More and more, the need for a regime change in November becomes evident.

[jesus marion joseph]

With all due respect to Jason, Uli and Chris A., I think you're all focusing on an imaginary "implied" conflict of interest and ignoring the facts. Just because the Sierra Club has (rightly so, IMHO) pointed out a potential conflict does not mean that there *must* be recusal, especially where, as here, the rationale is laid out in detail for not recusing oneself. What Scalia has done, in effect, by issuing his statement, is to lay out what would be said if there were a formal hearing on the matter, and impliedly challenged the Sierra Club to disprove his account of the events in question.

As we have all learned, there is no formal mechanism in recusal requests in the Supreme Court (which Rehnquist should consider changing, in my view), so this is as close as you'll ever get to learning the rationale behind the decision on a recusal request. Having offered an explanation, the Sierra Club should either provide some rebuttal facts or stop attempting to affect the decision in the underlying case by removing the court's most conservative-leaning justice from considering the matter, because that's what this really comes down to in the end, ironically enough.

The Sierra Club continues to suggest that there is something improper going on, even though they have not provided any rebuttal to Scalia's statement of the hunting trip in question. In other words, they have flung the charges against the wall and hoped something would stick, hoping to remove the justice they perceive as being most hostile to their point of view on the Cheney case, thus (hopefully) affecting the case in their favor. I don't blame them for the attempt, but they really need to either put up or shut up at this point.

Just my $.02 worth.

My 2¢ worth:

I think he must recuse himself, even if thinks he can make an absolutely unbiased judgment. If he rules in favor of Sierra Club, he will have demonstrated a fairness many Americans do not think he has, If he rules against the Sierra Club, the judgment will forever be questioned, and the Supreme Court's image will be further tainted.

Suppose Scalia were a lawyer for the prosecution, selecting a jury for his case, and one of the potential jurors were to reveal that she goes on trips and socializes with the defendant. Do you think Scalia would be comfortable with that? Of course not. In this real case, only people who support Cheney and what he stands for could possibly accept Scalia's refusal to withdraw from the case. And even some of of them see how wrong his involvement is.

March 20, 2004

• Justice in a Bind
  
  In an angry 21-page memorandum fired off on Thursday, Justice Antonin Scalia went to unbecoming lengths to justify his refusal to withdraw from a case challenging the secrecy surrounding the energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, his duck-hunting companion.
  
  Using the dismissive tone he usually reserves for dissents, the justice comes across as more concerned with defending his right to accept "social courtesies," like rides on the vice president's jet, than with protecting the Supreme Court's integrity.
  
  Justice Scalia defensively noted that he had invited Mr. Cheney, his longtime friend, to participate in the annual duck hunt in Louisiana, held by another friend, before the case made its way up to the Supreme Court. But instead of backing out of the trip once the case was pending, Justice Scalia accepted free rides on the small jet serving as Air Force Two — not for himself and a daughter, as widely and erroneously reported, including by this page — but for himself, a son and a son-in-law. Justice Scalia says he ended up having to buy round-trip tickets anyway, thus saving no money.
  
  He also points out, rather sarcastically, that he and the vice president neither shared a room nor a hunting blind, and did not discuss the case at the meals for the group of 13 or at other times. That misses the point. He had no business vacationing with a prominent litigant.
  
  Justice Scalia concedes that it might be appropriate to recuse himself if Mr. Cheney were being sued as an individual. His argument for staying in the case boils down to the disingenuous claim that this is a "run of the mill" legal matter that merely involves the vice president in his official capacity. The case is hardly a garden-variety government lawsuit. Should Mr. Cheney lose in the Supreme Court, there is the potential for deep personal and political embarrassment. Justice Scalia, having lowered the bar for judicial ethics by refusing to acknowledge the reasonableness of questions about his impartiality, has guaranteed that the Supreme Court will end up embarrassed, no matter which way it rules.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant
You know, the problem with the Republicans and conservatives in charge in Washington isn't that they're stupid or even evil; it's that they're so completely fucking arrogant.

Exactly.

Originally posted by Gentle Giant
"The fact is that the vice president is not a nominal party to this litigation. He has a strong personal and political interest in the result. That's the long and the short of it for me," Gillers said.

But this is what scares the shit out of me.


OK Nader-ites...how 'bout it?


Is your conscience bothering you NOW?