Scalia Flips

I am so, so tired of "my side" being full of hypocrites and jerks.

Justice Scalia flips the finger in church

BOSTON, March 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics.

A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.

"You know what I say to those people?" Scalia replied, making the obscene gesture and explaining "That's Sicilian."

The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper.

"Don't publish that," Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.

He was attending a special mass for lawyers and politicians at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and afterward was the keynote speaker at the Catholic Lawyers' Guild luncheon.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Hey, Antonin—you know that Eucharist of which you had just partaken minutes earlier? Yeah, that’s right, that whole Body of Christ thing. That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.

Yeah…seems it didn’t quite take for you in this case.

The next time you think about gettin' all up on your high horse about moral values and the lack of them in other people, take the damn plank out of your own eye, you creep.

You are not part of the solution. You are one big honkin’ part of the problem.

The next time someone talks about the Godlessness of Bill or Hillary or Kerry or Kennedy, give me one damn example of any of them doing something this reprehensible in or around a church. And if you can’t, then just shut up.

I am so embarrassed and horrified and just plain sick and tired of the double-standards.

Comments

[fish]

Say it preacher! Of course you are just using this for your own partisan agenda. Obviously you don't have a sense of humor about this. You know, like when Newt served his wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital for chemo. Ha ha.
Family values. Men of god.

[Scott]

There's a great post here on the issue of whether or not Scalia should recuse himself in the upcoming case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (he should, but he probably won't).

Scalia is one of the most overrated folks in Washington today. I read the book Scalia Dissents a while back and have been meaning to write a piece on it. He is so contradictory, freely bending his thinking depending upon what outcome he wishes to achieve. And, hey, there are worse sins. The problem is that he is so vocal in decrying that same trait in others. What can I say? I reckon we can't expect more from a good Catholic who receives the Body of Christ and then mere minutes later literally and publicly says "fuck you" to his critics.

Incidentally, in case the author of that fine piece is reading this, I think you've got a typo in thar; I tried to contact you but couldn't find a link to, and as I don't have a Blogger account, I couldn't leave a comment. Just so's you know.

[Scott]

Then again, they're just a bunch of generals and admirals. What could they possibly know about a case like this.

From The Washington Post:

Scalia's Recusal Sought in Key Detainee Case
Retired Officers Say Justice's Impartiality Is in Question After Remarks on Combatants
By Charles Lane

On the eve of oral argument in a key Supreme Court case on the rights of alleged terrorists, a group of retired U.S. generals and admirals has asked Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself, arguing that his recent public comments on the subject make it impossible for him to appear impartial.

In a letter delivered to the court late yesterday, a lawyer for the retired officers cited news reports of Scalia's March 8 remarks to an audience at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland. Scalia reportedly said it was "crazy" to suggest that combatants captured fighting the United States should receive a "full jury trial," and dismissed suggestions that the Geneva Conventions might apply to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Scalia's remarks "give rise to the unfortunate appearance that, even before briefing was complete, he had already made up his mind" about issues in the case, the lawyer, David H. Remes, wrote. Noting that Scalia reportedly had discussed the rights of accused terrorists in the context of his son Matthew's recent tour as an Army officer in Iraq, Remes wrote that this creates an appearance of "personal bias arising from his son's military service."

In his letter to the court, Remes said Scalia's reported reference to the Geneva Conventions was of particular concern to the retired officers as it is directly at issue in the case. Their brief supports the view of the petitioner, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, that the conventions apply to him and could entitle him to a court-martial trial like that which U.S. soldiers receive.

Other calls for Scalia's recusal came yesterday from the Center for Constitutional Rights, a civil rights organization that supports the challenge to the military commissions, and from Rep. John D. Conyers (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Court rules say that justices must recuse in cases where their impartiality "might reasonably be questioned." But it is up to each justice to make that decision. Court analysts said yesterday it is unlikely Scalia will recuse from the case.

This is the third time in recent years Scalia has faced pressure to recuse. In 2004, he recused from a case on the constitutionality of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, after speaking out on the case at a rally in Virginia.

Last year, he faced calls for his recusal from a case involving Vice President Cheney after it became public that they had gone duck hunting together. In that case, Scalia refused to step aside.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Here's an idea. If Scalia doesn't feel like doing the ethically-correct thing and recusing himself in all these cases where it's obvious he needs to, then in order to protect at least the appearance of integrity as concerns the Supreme Court, maybe he should stop giving all these talks and shooting off his mouth about cases he's about to hear.

I know, a nutty notion.

[Scott]

Breaking news!

So yesterday I thought I was going to have to apologize to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He was denying that he’s given the finger right after receiving Communion. Since he was caught on film—"You’re not going to print that, are you?" he said to the photographer at the time—obviously he wasn’t going to lie about not making an obscene gesture.

Turns out that, yes, indeed he was.

According to an article in today’s Boston Herald , Scalia did NOT, in fact, flip the bird—my initial post was wrong about that. Instead, he made the gesture we all know from watching The Sopranos, what we tend to think of as the Italian version, flicking your chin with your hand.

Oh, but that wasn’t enough for our ever-so-thorough jurist. No, he also said the word, "Vaffanculo." Which, according to the various online places I’ve checked this morning, is indeed the Italian word which means "Fuck you."

So he didn’t just make an obscene gesture after Mass. He also said something obscene.

And how obscene, you may be wondering? I mean, hey, times change and we’re all distressed about how much more crude the world has gotten these days, right? I mean, jeez louise, I say the same thing to my computer three times before I’ve finished my first cuppa joe in the morning.

Well, it turns out that while "Vaffanculo" is the Italian equivalent of our beloved "fuck you," it doesn’t literally mean "fuck you."

No, what it literally means is "go take it up the ass."

I mean…wow. Even by my standards, that’s a pretty unimaginably crude thing to have said right after having received Communion. Are we sure he really is Catholic? Because while he may talk the talk on pro-life issues, for instance, he really seems to be missing the forest for the trees on the entire Christianity thang.

But that’s our Antonin Scalia, our paradigm of morality.

What an upstanding example of Catholicism. He makes me proud.

Once again, it’s another case of "do as I say, not as I do."