NO CHECKS, NO BALANCES

Why Justice Antonin Scalia should duck off

Justice Antonin Scalia's own argument for why he should stay on the Cheney case -- to decide if Cheney should have to name the members of his secret Energy Task Force, which he has kept hidden from the public -- offers the best evidence for why he should recuse.

The 21-page Scalia memo is, in part, a heartwarming buddy story. Scalia fondly describes his tradition of going duck hunting at the camp of a friend named Wallace Carline. 'During my December 2002 visit, I learned that Mr. Carline was an admirer of Vice President Cheney,' Scalia wrote. 'Knowing that the vice president, with whom I am well acquainted (from our years serving together in the Ford administration), is an enthusiastic duck-hunter, I asked whether Mr. Carline would like to invite him to our next year's hunt.
"The answer was yes," Scalia went on. "I conveyed the invitation (with my own warm recommendation) in the spring of 2003 and received an acceptance (subject, of course, to any superseding demands on the vice president's time) in the summer. The vice president said that if he did go, I would be welcome to fly down to Louisiana with him."

[Would a rational person doubt that, all things being equal, the judge just might tilt toward the man with whom he is so "well acquainted?"]