Another Word about Antonin Scalia

Jeffrey Toobin, the legal correspondent for The New Yorker, wrote a “Talk of the Town” piece for the February 29 issue that quickly puts the legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia in perspective. Be sure to savor the first sentence of “Looking Back,” which begins with this paragraph:

Atonin Scalia, who died this month, after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, devoted his professional life to making the United States a less fair, less tolerant, and less admirable democracy. Fortunately, he mostly failed. Belligerent with his colleagues, dismissive of his critics, nostalgic for a world where outsiders knew their place and stayed there, Scalia represents a perfect model for everything that President Obama should avoid in a successor. The great Justices of the Supreme Court have always looked forward; their words both anticipated and helped shape the nation that the United States was becoming. Chief Justice John Marshall read the new Constitution to allow for a vibrant and progressive federal government. Louis Brandeis understood the need for that government to regulate an industrializing economy. Earl Warren saw that segregation was poison in the modern world. Scalia, in contrast, looked backward.

The whole piece can be read here. No more needs to be said except perhaps that this man must be replaced on the court by a forward-looking justice. Such a justice would not be appointed by a Republican president.