Sandra Day O’Connor

Even justices whose judicial decisions totally evade me (I’m talking about you Antonin Scalia) are remarkably intellectual.

I am watching Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on with David Letterman.

“Well, I like to shoot gophers” – Justice O’Connor

He has wisely chosen to sit back and let her speak. She is full of stories. She is no shrinking violet.

Wow–she blows me away. She is 79, but there’s no way you’d know that without Wikipedia.

I have only seen a handful of “The Supremes” appear in public. I’ve been incredibly impressed each time. Even justices whose judicial decisions totally evade me (I’m talking about you, Antonin Scalia) are remarkably intellectual.

The Supreme Court is by no means infallible. Separate but equal was equal w-a-y too long. Still, the court might be the most consistently good thing in our government.

I look forward some day to arguments before the court being seen on TV. It’s too important an institution to keep hidden from public view.

Justice Scalia

There’s not a lot he and I agree on. However, he is astoundingly smart, smug and charming.

I’ve just pressed pause while watching the 60 Minutes interview with Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice.

There’s not a lot he and I agree on. However, he is astoundingly smart, smug and charming.

You don’t see a lot of “The Supremes” on TV. I saw Scalia once before, probably on C-SPAN, debating Justice Breyer. I was in awe of their collective brilliance and collegial sparring.

How they could they both possess such amazing minds and opposing viewpoints?

On 60 Minutes, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was used to provide the same contrast. She and Scalia are close friends, though they seldom vote the same way.

Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing.

I watched the interview and all I could think of was, he will be played by Nathan Lane.

scalia-and-lane.jpg

Note: I swear I didn’t look for the photos until after I’d written the entry.

Sunday With The Supremes

I still have to write yesterday’s entry about Florida and my trip back. I was just just mentally exhausted yesterday and couldn’t.

This early afternoon, as I was laying in bed, I popped the TV on and began to channel surf. I stopped at C-Span.

I make no claims as an intellectual and C-Span is something I seldom watch longer than 20 seconds. Mostly C-Span is deadly – boring beyond words. It is the worst of TV talking heads.

The guests or people giving talks and speeches are ten miles deep and two inches wide. In other words, they know a whole lot about a very narrow subject. Normally it is a subject that has no draw for me.

Today it was the opposite and it was one of the most revealing, uplifting discussions I have ever seen. I watched a moderated conversation between Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Steven Breyer.

If you’re not a Supreme Court watcher, these two are polar opposites. Scalia sits on the far right and Breyer is equidistant to the left. On top of that, Supreme Court justics are seldom seen ‘in the wild,’ and never seen debating.

It is obvious these men are brilliant scholars who understand the weight of their charge. They are fond of each other – respectful of each other’s different opinion.

To hear them speak and weigh their points is to understand the power and beauty of our Supreme Court. Though it would be impossible to agree with both of them, it is important we have both of them. The Supreme Court needs a diversity of opinion, though its collective leaning will shift with shifting political tides.

Not to cheapen the Supreme Court, but isn’t this kind of discussion that Crossfire &#185 should have been? The more people who hear this kind of repartee, the stronger a country we’ll be. Of course you’ve got to get them to stop at C-Span for a few minutes.

&#185 – Crossfire, a CNN mainstay for decades, has recently been canceled.