"Strict Constructionist"

Which translates as "activist judge that fringe right-wingers agree with."

It has long puzzled me how Antonin Scalia got his reputation as a legal scholar. As you might guess from this article, he's largely a grandstander who, it seems, is more interested in headlines than careful analysis, and an unashamed ideologue as well. I've read some of his opinions, mostly dissents in creationism-in-the-shools cases, and the man is not a deep thinker. Here's a link to Edwards v Aguillard, with Scalia's dissent. (You'll have to scroll down quite a way to get to Scalia's opinion. Although this case dates from 1987, making it one of the earlier cases in this vein, it's quite apparent that Scalia was picking and choosing which facts he was going to pay attention to: in his eyes, if the Louisiana legislature said that creationism was science and not religion, that's good enough for Scalia. (The U.S. District Court, in MccLean v Arkansas (1982), was only the first court to find that creationism was religious doctrine, and not open to legislative definition as anything else, an opinion which Scalia ignores, as I recall, in his dissent in Edwards.)

Did I mention that he specializes in asking the wrong questions? There is his often-reiterated statement, in regard to Lawrence and Garner v Texas, that the Constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to engage in homosexual behavior. In point of fact, the Constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to engage in any sexual behavior -- that's one of those rights that falls under Chief Justice Warren's badly worded "penumbra" opinion. However, this seems to be one of Scalia's trademarks, and to me a sure sign of someone who either doesn't get it, or doesn't want to deal with it and so throws up a smokescreen.

Here are some comments by dday at Hullbaloo on Scalia and his mindset.

It could be worse, I guess -- the Senate could have confirmed Robert Bork.

(Thanks to Andrew Sullivan.)