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Original Post:
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| Scalia on "60 Minutes": a brilliant portrait |
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| CBS "60 Minutes" |
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| Sun, April 27, 2008 |
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Lesley Stahl and her producer Ruth Streeter deliver a smart, entertaining portrait of Justice Antonin Scalia. I've been hard on "60 Minutes" for failing its storied history, including recently. But not this time. Scalia displays his feisty charm, and Stahl covers the substantive arguments while giving viewers a full-on view of the dynamism that is Scalia.
One striking realization: Scalia is a closeted journalist! He makes an off-color joke, telling an Oxford audience that legislative compromise is "splitting the baby" -- in a discussion of abortion policy. And this: "The next appointee to the Court is going to be a female, Protestant, Hispanic. If you can find her out there, she's in." And this: He and his wife have nine children from "playing Vatican roulette". He defends colorful, provocative writing, which after all is the ostensible purpose of this PR blitz (good writing, he says, "makes the opinion interesting, which might induce someone to read it"). He's anti-authoritarian ("It may well be that I'm something of a shin-kicker. It may well be that I'm something of a contrarian."). Sounds like pure journo to me.
Based on early reports, I assumed the piece would be a rehash. Not at all. The most dramatic moment: when Stahl hauls out old, private writings, including from Harry Blackmun's papers, where Scalia despaired over his lack of influence over the Court's majority. His facial expressions hide nothing as Stahl reads his words back to him. "I'm happier sometimes than at other times," Scalia allows, adding that his down times tend to come at a term's end, when the Court's output is "usually a disappointment."
What I like most about this story was that it wasn't an ideological rant or rave. It didn't ask that we love or hate Scalia's jurisprudence and ideology. It simply asked that we learn more about -- and see -- the man. It's not nearly a substitute for what the Court should do. But what a gift to the public, to get to know an important public official in this way.
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Posted at 08:02 PM
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There are 3 comments to this post:
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| Pauly commented: |
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| One sided |
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His performance was excellent and very informative. What would make the 60 minutes story better is the point of view of Scalia's critics.
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Posted Fri, May 02, 2008 at 11:51 PM
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| MarkObbie commented: |
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| Depends on your perspective |
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Perhaps I'm more weary of our hyper-partisan culture, one in which differences of opinion on public policy are treated as cause for all-out war. Recognizing that public figures are not caricatures is a worthy form of journalism.
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Posted Thu, May 01, 2008 at 08:01 AM
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| rsmascar commented: |
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I'm not sure I agree, Professor: how does it help the American public to know that, regardless of where Scalia stands on certain legal issues, he's also a charming man --- "so unpretentious and down-to-earth" --- outside of his opinions? In fact, isn't this precisely what's wrong with the personality-driven media coverage of the Presidential election, which obscures issues with vague notions about a candidate's "true" character?
Now, I'm not saying that personality does not have a place in Supreme Court coverage. It's garbage, to my mind, when Scalia says that his personal background does not decide his view of the Constitution (as if it's possible to completely detach yourself from your human perspective), as it is when he says he can't use charm to change legal philosophies (maybe had he been nicer to Sandra Day, she wouldn't have been such a crucial swing vote for liberals).
But at the end of the day, I don't care if Scalia showed "humility" during the editing of his own book, or that his friends often find him amusing. There was just too much breathless admiration from Stahl, which was entirely inappropriate and, I thought, unnecessary.
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Posted Wed, April 30, 2008 at 05:52 PM
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