RAT FWD: Scalia's legal vision is blinded by his ambition

[Laura Winton <fluffysingler@prodigy.net>]

this is one of the more sickening and blatant things I've read--although all
the way through it's been about favors and backscratching.  I did read that
Scalia's son is on Bush's legal team, and this article shows that it's even
worse than just that.


------Original Message------
From: Mary Jo Maroney <maroneym@hpmidwest.org>
Sent: December 12, 2000 4:23:13 PM GMT
Subject: Scalia's legal vision is blinded by his ambition


Published on Monday, December 11, 2000 in the New York
<http://www.nydailynews.com/> Daily News
Justice Scalia's Legal Vision Is Blinded by His Ambition
by Jim Dwyer

Earlier this year, Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice
who now is all but serving as the attorney for George W. Bush, let it be
known that if Democrats won the presidency, he'd quit the court.
He would leave because under a Democratic administration, he
would have no shot at being named chief justice by Al Gore, according to the
March issue of the Washingtonian magazine.
Now, Scalia has taken charge of the election case for George
W. Bush and will try to herd the conservatives this morning for the result
he apparently wants: a Bush presidency, and, perhaps, the job of chief
justice when William Rehnquist retires in a few years as is expected.
Normally, judges disqualify themselves from cases in which
they have a personal interest; if the naked ambition to be the court's chief
was accurately attributed to him, then he has no business deciding this
fight.
Scalia, however, could not have been bolder in his advocacy
for Bush's cause, and, by extension, his own.
During oral arguments two weeks ago, he took shots at the
Florida courts, which had said the most fundamental right in a democracy is
the vote.
No way, Scalia said.
"There is no right of suffrage under Article II," he
declared.
In plain English, he said that the citizens have no
constitutional right to vote for President. His reason is that the
Constitution places that power in the hands of the state legislatures,
although he did not mention that all 50 state legislatures submit the
question to a popular vote. (Some transcripts of the Supreme Court session
attributed this remark to Rehnquist, but Scalia apparently was the actual
speaker.)
Over the weekend, he took matters even further.
Scalia wrote that Bush would suffer "irreparable harm" if
votes were counted "by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the
legitimacy of his election."
You have may seen that moment in "A Few Good Men" when Tom
Cruise is defending a soldier at a military trial.
"I want the truth!" says Cruise, during cross-examination.
Jack Nicholson looks up at him with contempt.
"You can't handle the truth," snarls Nicholson.
The legality of the votes worries Scalia."Count first and
rule upon legality afterward is not a recipe for producing election results
that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires," Scalia
wrote.
We've gotten by for two centuries on precisely that recipe.
That is what is done on every Election Day in this country.
First we vote. Then come the challenges, if any, which end
up in court, and are decided there. This is not new. To have disputed
ballots decided by courts doesn't "change the rules of the game." Those are
the rules of the game. To do otherwise changes the law, the customs and the
practice in every single state.
No one can possibly argue that it is the best interests of
Bush or Gore that the votes not be counted.
There was talk yesterday - unfortunately, it proved to be
untrue - that the Florida courts were going to ship uncounted ballots up to
Washington. Those ballots, for better and worse, are the only evidence about
the results of this election.
To exclude them from this decision is like saying that a
murder weapon seized from a suspect can't be shown to a jury because of a
legal technicality.
But Scalia says that we - the nation - can't handle the
truth of counting those ballots, that the results might damage a Bush
presidency if they show that he really didn't win.
So we hide the facts for the good of the country.
Or is it really for the good of Antonin Scalia, the chief
justice wanna-be?
Copyright 2000 NY Daily News
###

"Those poor kids.  So young.  So nauseous."
--Krusty the Klown Telethon for Motion Sickness


Laura Winton
fluffysingler@prodigy.net
http://pages.prodigy.net/fluffysingler