Scalia's One-Fingered Judgment

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Here's an excerpt from a recent UPI item:

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.”

Actually, the gesture is not half as obscene as many of his rulings.

Comments

[ahfukit]

I think it's good they have a special mass for lawyers and politicians. Probably have to say more stuff to get the Confiteor to take.

[Tony Bologna]

The wallets like to pray together; check out one another's dope-addled, botox-enhanced wives; sidle up to the grease at the altar and whisper, "Some of my corporate colleagues are planning a little golfing expedition to St. Andrews, Senator. Wanna come?"

[ahfukit]

Will and Grace, aka, trotting out the altar egos.

[ahfukit]

Hubris delivers the goods...

[Tony Bologna]

Thanks for the link, ahfukit. Same sentiment, different gesture. I heard a lot of vaffanculos around the house when I was growing up. Its literal meaning is closer to "Go and take it up the ass," which is interesting, given that Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion when the Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law. So which is it, Justice Scalia? Should the Boston Herald reporter go play Hide the Salami or not?

[J. Alva Scruggs]

Tony, sodomy is perfectly acceptable as long as it is non-consensual. A punitive or vengeful buggering contradicts nothing in the wingnut view of human interaction. Indeed, it is more often than not a moral imperative!

When Justice Scalia admonishes people to take it up the ass, he is acting in strict constructionist fashion. One cannot help but applaud the consistency and rigor.

[Tony Bologna]

I see what you mean about rigor. I have a gay buddy, an older man, who finds Scalia's obsession with "homosexual conduct" and all his vaffanculos pretty hot. Wants to put a pair of chaps on Antonin and take him up to Brokeback Mountain. I can see what he means. I had a similar fantasy about Sandra Day O'Connor after I heard her speak about her upbringing on a ranch in some flyover state. I imagined her neatly pressed denim, the snap of the American flag in the prairie breeze, all that Calvinist sobriety just waiting to let loose in the hayloft.

[J. Alva Scruggs]

Life is a funny thing, Tony. Where your friend sees Scalia in chaps, I see him covered in a rich glaze, with an apple in his mouth, and some of those white paper booties on his feet. It's a different vision, but I bet the proposition for either would evoke the exact same reaction.

Hey! You know I had a similar fantasy about Justice O'Connor? Not the glaze, but the denim and the hayloft. True fact. I'd feel weird and stuff, but it seems like justice has that kind of appeal (heh) for lots of people.