Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, Mark
Twain once said, 'the man looked honest enough.' Incoming Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid is no Twain, but he could have been
paraphrasing America's greatest writer when he weighed in on Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia's intelligence recently. 'I cannot dispute
the fact, as I have said, that this is one smart guy,' Reid told Tim
Russert on NBC's 'Meet the Press' a couple of days ago. 'And I disagree
with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reasons for
arriving at those results are very hard to dispute.' How's that for a
critique of right-wing jurisprudence? Reid doesn't agree with Scalia
about anything, but he can't muster the brain power it takes to refute
him. Oh, I'm feeling really confident about the new Senate minority
leader. But as left-handed as Reid's compliment was, it came at the
expense of Justice Clarence Thomas, the other ultra-conservative on the
United States Supreme Court. The soft-spoken Nevadan told Russert that
he considered Thomas an 'embarrassment' to the Supreme Court, citing
'poorly written' opinions and his perception that the moodiest justice
simply wasn't doing a good job.It's not that I disagree with Reid on
the inappropriateness of Clarence Thomas as chief justice -- I'm just
baffled that he considers Scalia so much more qualified to preside over
the court than the man who made 'Long Dong Silver' a cult hero in the
shameless 1990s. [more]
Justice Scalia says Affirmative Action is Wrong and tells University crowd to `get over' 2000 election [more]