Sitting Ducks: Ruffled feathers over the Supreme Court's recusal rules.

Slate ^ | February 3, 2004 | Dahlia Lithwick

[Lurking Libertarian]

Sitting Ducks
Ruffled feathers over the Supreme Court's recusal rules.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004, at 3:52 PM PT

Calls for something to be done about the Supreme Court's gauzy conflict-of-interest policy grew shriller last week, as congressional Democrats pressed Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist for clarification (and codification) of rules about when a Supreme Court justice has been too compromised to hear a case fairly. The trouble began last month when reports surfaced that, while a case in which Vice President Dick Cheney is the named party was pending in the Supreme Court, Cheney went duck hunting in Louisiana with Justice Antonin Scalia. It's bad enough that the several-day trip was sponsored by an energy company and that the case questions whether energy companies played too significant a role in developing Bush's energy policy. Matters worsened significantly with Scalia's flip statement to the Los Angeles Times that, "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned" and that the only thing really wrong with the trip was that the hunting was "lousy."

[Lurking Libertarian]

From the article:

"it should remain Scalia's decision whether to do so or not. If he cannot be trusted to make it, he cannot be trusted to decide anything."

[Huck]

This article is too funny to make up.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Maybe next time Cheney could go hunting with Liebeman, Leahy, Conyers and Waxman and...

[nightdriver]

"There was a lot more wrong with the trip than that."

'Course, that's just Dahlia Lithwick's personal opinion.

[Tacis]

"when a Supreme Court justice has been too compromised to hear a case fairly"

And, of course, the definition of the word "fairly" must be left to democrats!

This involves an interesting analysis of the left-wing media in this country. You can usually tell the party of an evil-doing politician by whether there are cals for his/her resignation/recusal. If there are calls for resignation, them he/she is propbably a Republican, as in the Washington state Senator who allegedly used a racial slur. He must resign!!! When there is mention of wromg doing but the media DOESN'T mention calls for resignation/recusal, you know it's a dem, as in Hillie saying that Ghandi worked in a minimart.

Read carefully and place your bets according to this outline; you'll be a winner!!