Discussion for article #222243
Can he officially be considered to be in his dotage now? Or is that agist?
I guess it would be pointless for call for him to resign, and Thomas, too. After all, he signed the dissenting opinion without even checking its facts?
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I think this is the first obvious sign that Scalia’s been going senile for a while now.
Expect many more in the future, unless his fellow Justices start to cover for him. Unless that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for several years now, and he just bit the bullet in this one because he was the sole dissenting Justice (MiniScalia aka Thomas doesn’t really count).
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The problem for Scalia is that he’s said, repeatedly, that he would step down once he felt he could no longer perform his duties as justice. Of course EVERYBODY in the political circles he moves in will be urging him to stay on until a Republican President can replace him–but it’s looking like the next Republican President could be a long ways off. And quite certainly more than two years off. His condition, whatever it is (and there’s no way this is just a simple memory glitch) can only degrade over that much time.
I’m no more a doctor than I am a lawyer, but I’ve noted distinct changes in his personality in recent years–he’s always been brusque, sarcastic, but not outright wacky. Lately he’s been pretty wacky–like he’s lost any sense of what’s appropriate for a man in his position. Like he’s actually become a somewhat different person. I really do suspect he’s had a small stroke that has impacted brain function. His family medical history would tend to bear that out. His father died of a stroke in 1985.
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William O. Douglas stayed on the court after a stroke had largely incapacitated him, and even attempted to continue to participate in court business after his retirement and replacement by John Paul Stevens. After the stroke but before his retirement, his fellow justices agreed to postpone till the next term any decisions close enough to be affected by Douglas’ vote. After his retirement the sitting justices had to unanimously sign a formal letter informing Douglas that his service at the court was at an end before he finally left.
I can’t imagine Scalia agreeing to retire and be replaced by an Obama nominee for any reason, certainly not because of issues of mental capacity. He’s nowhere near as far gone as Douglas was by the end (even though he’s older). Nor do I see the rest of the right wing of the court agreeing to be emasculated by losing his vote. This could get ugly.
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An old legal adage: “If the facts aren’t on your side, argue the law. If the law isn’t on your side, argue the facts. If neither is on your side, bang on the table.” In Scalia’s case, the last sentence should conclude: “make stuff up.” As an aside, some law clerk is probably going to be looking for another job.
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Forget whether the Teahadists in the Senate won’t allow Scalia to be replaced by an Obama centrist; SCALIA won’t let Scalia be replaced by an Obama centrist. The only way Nino goes out of SCOTUS is feet first. And then we get to hear how SCOTUS is actually underworked – they only hear a few cases a year, after all – so there’s no NEED to replace Scalia until a “more opportune time.” (i.e. The GOTP controlling everything again in 2017… or so the fantasy goes.)
On the other hand, if Ginsberg’s pancreatic cancer takes her down, the RW will start waving Janice Rogers Brown around as a “suitable” replacement. (“Hey! Ginsburg’s a woman! Brown’s a woman! It’s same-for-same, right?”) And when Obama says “No”, prepare for more “serious people” saying Obama refuses to work with the other side of the aisle.
In the words of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Oh, MAN!”
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Scalia will retire only when they pry his cold dead hands from the gavel. He will continue to put his own warped and perverted brand of justice ahead of any public needs.
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There is a very simple explanation. And Darrell Issa will find it. Just further, conclusive proof that Scalia’s “sell-by date” expired long, long ago.
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Good scene-setting. I think you’re right that Scalia is looking at 6 1/2 years minimum to have a potential ® replacing him. Hope you’re right.
To hold the illogical opinions he espouses, you have to
willfully ignore real world evidence. Creeping senility would make that easier and Scalia doesn’t work hard anyway.
Maybe Thomas has just been memory enabler, his silent file cabinet, so to speak, and has started a “wildcat” work stoppage.
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“…the Supreme Court has corrected Scalia’s opinion…”
Consistent with conservative practice to keep the truth quiet while asserting lies.
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I’ve heard a couple different variations on that truism. I think I like something like this version for its symmetry:
“If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.”
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Ezra Klein wrote a great piece, [“How politics makes us stupid.”][1]
The short answer is that when politics get involved, winning the argument can become more important that finding the right answer.
This conclusion is backed up by a fascinating experiment. People who were good at math did a better job solving apolitical problems whether or not a skin cream works. But when the question became how gun control laws affect the crime rate, political partisans were consistently right if it matched their ideology, consistently wrong if it didn’t, and the wrongest group of all was the partisans with good math skills when the correct answer contradicted their politics.
Klein cites Justice Scalia as exactly the sort of intelligent partisan who’s more interested in winning than being right.
[1]: http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-makes-us-stupid
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Okay, it’s time for Scalia to step down. It’s obvious that his ability to be a supreme court justice is compromised.
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I wouldn’t hold back on demanding the both of them step down. I wish that there was a petition going around the nation to demand it. I’d be the first to sign.
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This is pretty typical modern conservative practice. If the facts don’t match your current situation, simply avow that the opposite are the facts. It’s FOX’ems razor.
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Beyond time for drug testing these guys. Or maybe test for early-onset Alzheimer’s.
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Just another case of IOKIYAR. He’s going to continue to be a stamp for Wall Street till he takes the dirt nap.
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Gimme a break. I’ve hated (almost) every single Scalia opinion and dissent since he joined the court, but if one mistake makes you senile, nobody could hold any job which requires hundreds, if not thousands of pages of writing every year.
Scalia is partisan scum (although is Lawrence dissent from 2003 has some involuntary comedy in it), but anybody who questions his intelligence is deluding himself. So he made a mistake. I’ve made mistakes in my life (fortunately not as high profile as Scalia), but I presume that all the critics around here have been absolutely blameless in their professional careers.