Chief Justice explicitly poo-pooh’d any talk of a Kagan recusal a month ago, more or less.
And I lost all respect for him when he did. His argument basically amounted to we have he ability to remain impartial and decide correctly even when a conflict is present. Great, except that’s not how it is supposed to work. The whole idea behind recusal and conflict (in the Law) is that even the appearance of conflict should be cordoned off such that no claim of conflict could be made.
Kagan and Roberts are basically crapping on a central tenet of the law that gives it a claim to impartiality and thus fairness. It is setting a double standard that does irreparable harm to justice.