Huckleberry Taking Point

by digby

They got the racists’ attention. Now they’re playing the bitch chip in earnest. (With some hot salsa on top):

In his post-meeting news conference Graham also raised questions about Sotomayor’s temperament. He said that while she was friendly in the meeting, he could not simply ignore reports from other lawyers she’s dealt with that she has a fiery temper.

“I think she does have the intellectual capacity to do the job,” Graham said. “But there’s a character problem. There’s a temperament problem that they — during the time they’ve had to be a judge, that they were more of an advocate than an impartial decider of the law. And I’ve got to find out, in my own mind” about her temperament.

Yeah. You certainly can’t have anyone like that on the Supreme Court.

Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.
“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, `To my critics, I say, `Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.
The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.”

…

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s famous temper is often discussed in legal circles as an indelible part of his forceful personality, as if it were a mole on his cheek or the accent that rolls off his tongue. Whenever he acts like a jerk, and that is a relatively common occurrence for a man who works within the semi-secret world of the High Court, we are told by his sycophants that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly and that he has earned the right to be rude.

…Tuesday afternoon, Scalia showed again just how easy it is to set him off when a college student asked him a reasonable, even poignant question about accessibility to the workings of the Supreme Court. Here is how the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel chronicled the incident:

Student Sarah Jeck stood in front of 750 people and asked Scalia why cameras are not allowed in the U.S. Supreme Court even though the court hearings are open, transcripts are available and the court’s justices are open enough to go ‘out on book tours.’ ‘Read the next question,’ Scalia replied. ‘That’s a nasty, impolite question.’

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Justice Scalia, in the Opinion of the Court, called Justice Stevens’ interpretation of the phrase “to keep and bear arms” incoherent and grotesque.[114]
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