Justice Scalia Talks About His Possible Replacement
Here’s a flashback to July 2012, when Justice Scalia was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace — who, truth be told, was kind of a jerk to the Justice. But it’s OK. Nino handled himself just fine. If you didn’t watch this the first time I posted it, treat yourself now.
If you go to 18:30, and watch for a minute, you’ll see a fun little discussion of Scalia’s pique at being criticized by Richard Posner in (I think) an unfair manner. It’s worth it, trust me.
But what really hits home is at 22:25, where we see Chris Wallace asking Scalia if he would time his retirement to coincide with a Republican administration. Scalia says he hasn’t decided. Wallace asks him if he wouldn’t prefer to be replaced by a Republican appointee, given what he says earlier in the interview about Republicans generally preferring originalists and textualists, while Democrats prefer Justices who like Roe v. Wade. Scalia then says:
I would not like to be replaced by someone who immediately sets about undoing everything that I’ve tried to do for 25 years, 26 years. Sure. But I shouldn’t have to tell you that, unless you think I’m a fool.
What a great man. The country will never be able to replace Justice Scalia — but we owe it to ourselves, and to him, to come as close as we can.