Justice Antonin Scalia is at it again.

"For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life!" he said Wednesday, replying to an audience member at the University of Connecticut who asked about Scalia's refusal last year to sit out a case involving his hunting partner, Vice President Cheney.

Scalia had similar advice to a student in Switzerland who asked last month about the Supreme Court's ruling for George W. Bush during the 2000 election. "Oh, God. Get over it," he said.

And, on March 27, he answered a Boston Herald reporter's question about criticism of his conservative religious beliefs by putting his fingertips under his chin and flipping them dismissively outward. "That's Sicilian," the high court's first Italian American explained, triggering a controversy that would spill over to cable TV and prompt a testy letter to the editor of the Herald from Scalia himself.

One of the most conservative -- and cerebral -- of the nine justices, Scalia, 70, has never shied from verbal warfare.

But as he completes his second decade on the court, Scalia, often known by his nickname, Nino, seems less inhibited than ever, speaking frequently off-the-cuff, in a crowd-pleasing voice quite unlike that of the legal academy to which he once belonged.

It is the voice of a conservative populist: combative, humorous, and sharply critical of the media and of the legal establishment atop which he sits. That includes the Supreme Court, from whose rulings in favor of gay rights and against the juvenile death penalty he dissented vigorously but in vain.

But what's really interesting about this story, and totally unremarked by the WaPo reporter, is that the supposedly brilliant legal mind of Scalia has, once again, completely missed the essence of the American system of government, which was specifically set up so that the the people would not have to rely on trusting their government officials to do the right thing.

A trifucated division of the Federal government and a system of checks and balances between them was designed to insure that something besides an official's personal ethics would keep them under control. When that breaks down, because, for instance, party loyalty is held to be more important that oversight, or due to unchrecked corruption, or because ideological precepts or committment to special interests overwhelm common sense, necessity and practicality, then we all suffer.

For Scalia to blow off an obvious conflict of interest by saying "trust me" insults the intelligence of the American people, and thumbs his nose at the purpose of the Founding Fathers in setting things up the way they did. It's no surprise that to Scalia results are more important that principle, what's a surprise is that so relatively few people have noticed, and that he still retains a reputation as a deep legal thinker. Whatever he once was, now, he's just another right-wing politician.

We are not judging the credibility of Kerry or the [Swift Boat] Veterans; we just print the facts.

Leonard Downie,
Executive Editor, Washington Post
quoted by Joe Strupp in
Editor & Publisher (8/24/04)

Why should anyone be surprised that the editors of the Post have no real understanding of the value of real reporting or the role of the press as a counter-influence to the government, and see nothing wrong in acting as shills for the Bush administration without regard for the facts.

Fred Hiatt joins my list.

Update (4/21): Media Matters organizes to put some pressure on the Post, a once fine newspaper (although always an establishment one) now firmly in the pocket of the Republican party.

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups.

[...]

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

[...]

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran.

[...]

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

It's comforting that the honor and integrity of some of our high miilitary officials remains intact, but doesn't it turn the world on its head when the military holds civilian officials in check, and not the other way around?

Addenda: Kevin Drum says:

Who knows? A subtle and well orchestrated game of chicken might be appropriate here. But please raise your hands if you trust this crew to play a subtle and well orchestrated game of anything.

Precisely the problem.

Josh Marshall:

[Reader] AB suggests that what's going on here is not actually preparations for war, but saber-rattling to keep the Iranians off balance and give them an added incentive to reach a diplomatic compromise.

With any other administration, I'd agree with that. Hinting at a potential military option would actually make sense as a backdrop to serious diplomatic discussions. It would make sense for an administration that wanted a diplomatic solution.

But this isn't any administration. This is an administration that demonstrated in a fairly analogous situation a preference for war over diplomatic solutions. So the 'threats as a way to spur diplomatic flexibility' argument makes perfect sense in the abstract. But there's no reason to assume it applies to this situation.

For myself, I still find it really, really hard to believe that the adminstration is seriously considering military action against Iran. At one level, I don't believe it. But I've thought the same thing with these guys too many times and been wrong. It's a situation where I set logical analysis aside and rely on experience and the administration's track record.

We know these guys. Why get fooled again?

and

It is also not too early to point out that the evidence is there for the confluence of two destructive and disastrous forces -- hawks in the administration's Cheney faction whose instinctive bellicosity is only matched by their actual incompetence (a fatal mixture if there ever was one), and the president's chief political aides who see the build up to an Iran confrontation as the most promising way to contest the mid-term elections. Both those groups are strongly motivated for war. And who is naive enough to imagine a contrary force within the administration strong enough to put on the brakes?

And this... Atrios:

Soon enough I suppose we'll find out if Bush is indeed insane, and whether or not the American people have finally had enough.

This suggests the campaign slogan for the Democratic candidate in '08 (assuming there's a country to be President of by 2008): "Not Insane."



Update (4/11): Billmon on "Mutually Assured Dementia."