Scalia---'Mister Justice'--- Defends Bush v. Gore ("Get Over it!" It was Al Gore Who Went "Looking for Trouble"!)
Posted by Damozel | In other words, leave the Court alone and it'll leave you alone! What do you want from the Justice System...justice?
Watch him say it ---- well, more or less say it --- here:
Here's Scalia explaining his personal views:
"I am a law-and-order guy. I mean, I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases.... On the abortion thing, for example, if indeed I were…trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I would be in favor of the opposite view, which the anti-abortion people would like to see adopted, which is to interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion." (CBS News)
But don't worry; he wouldn't actually do that. "There’s nothing [in the Constitution to support that view]." (CBS News)
It's nice to get a little insight into the new, media-friendly Scalia:
In 2004, his security detail forced two reporters in Mississippi to erase tape recordings of a speech he gave. Scalia later apologized and said his policy was aimed at the broadcast media, not print reporters who record his speeches to write accurate stories.
And in 2006 when a Boston reporter approached him after a mass and asked whether lawyers might question his impartiality in church-state matters, Scalia flicked his fingers under his chin in a well-known dismissive gesture.
But Scalia has embarked on an apparent media blitz this year. One possible reason for the change is that his children have urged him to do more televised public appearances. Another reason is to promote his book.
In February in London, Scalia told the BBC that some physical interrogation techniques can be used on a terrorism suspect in the event of an imminent threat such as a hidden bomb about to blow up. (AP)
(Oh please please please let Jeremy Paxman interview him!)
But his comments on the election really are a bridge too far.
"I say nonsense," Scalia responds to Stahl’s observation that people say the Supreme Court’s decision in Gore v. Bush was based on politics and not justice. "Get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two," he says, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision that the Supreme Court of Florida’s method for recounting ballots was unconstitutional.(CBS News; emphasis added)
At Crooks and Liars, Logan Murphy writes:
This is an insult to America and the planet. The death and destruction that George Bush and his regime have unleashed since his selection will take decades, perhaps generations to repair and Scalia has the nerve to say something like this? Our Constitution is being shredded, our military is broken and bogged down in two failing military conflicts that have left hundreds of thousands dead, our economy is in the tank with more Americans on food stamps and lacking health insurance than at any time in modern history, and we’re supposed to get over it? No, Justice Scalia, we will not get over it — at least not any time soon.
That decision will be hung around his neck like a dead albatross all the way down through the rest of history until the day the world ends.
It proved he personally was nothing more than a cheap partisan hack. He knows it. He even uses the old cheap partisan hack slogan, "get over it." The court disgraced itself and the Republican party showed the country and the world that they no longer cared about legitimacy..... The regrets are manifested in the American people's current disgust and loathing of the boy-man those five egomaniacs illegitimately foisted on the country.
Digby adds
There is a reportedly good movie called Recount premiering on HBO about the Florida recount next month. Make sure your kids see it so they know what it looks like when Republicans steal an election. (See the trailer here).
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