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by George Weigel Other Articles by George WeigelContact this Author Two Catholics of Consequence 11/03/06 Two of the most influential Catholics in American public life marked important milestones in their lives and careers last month. The nation owes both men a large debt of gratitude. For the first time in a very long time, Henry Hyde’s name will not be on a ballot in this election cycle: one of the greatest Catholic legislators in US history is retiring, full of years — and not a few pains — but unbroken and unbowed. It’s hard to imagine the US House of Representatives...

WASHINGTON - There is something liberating about a lifetime appointment and a certainty in the correctness of one's ideas. Justice Antonin Scalia has both. He travels the world as a sought-after speaker, snags White House dinner invitations and packs one of the most powerful pens on Earth as a leading conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court. More than once, he has looked over a crowd of Washington power-brokers and observed that there is no one in the group who can help him or hurt him. Yet while Scalia's influence and presence are undisputed, there have been significant frustrations as...

Justice Antonin Scalia was the Supreme Court's most frequent traveler last year with 24 expense-paid trips that took him as far as Ireland, Italy, Turkey and Australia. Law schools and legal groups paid for most of Scalia's travel, although Italian heritage organizations, media giant Time Warner Inc., the Roman Catholic Diocese of Louisiana and the Juilliard School also covered some trips. The information was included in Scalia's financial disclosure report, filed earlier this month. The other eight justices' finances for 2005 were disclosed in June. Scalia received an extension. Scalia also is one of at least six millionaires among the...

Famously feisty Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia yesterday denied that he made an obscene gesture Sunday inside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, accusing the Herald staff of “watching too many Sopranos episodes.” In a letter to the editor, an almost unheard-of step for a Supreme Court justice, Scalia said a reporter misinterpreted the gesture he made when she asked whether his participation in Sunday’s special Mass for lawyers might cause some people to question his impartiality in matters of church and state. “Your reporter, an up-and-coming ‘gotcha’ star named Laurel J. Sweet, asked me (o-so-sweetly) what I said to...

Chief Justice John Roberts declined to participate in the U.S. Supreme Court hearing that yesterday took up the appeal of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who served as Osama Bin Laden's driver for five years. Roberts was forced to step aside because he had rendered an opinion on Hamdan's claims while sitting on a lower court. Roberts' recusal was regrettable because his legal thinking was spot-on in upholding President Bush's power to try Hamdan, now held at Guantanamo Bay, before a military tribunal. Roberts concluded that Congress had authorized the President to convene such tribunals and that Hamdan can be so tried...

WHEN IT HEARS ARGUMENTS IN Hamdan v. Rumsfeld this Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Bush administration can try Guantanamo detainees in special military tribunals, or whether the detainees' cases have to be heard in federal court. In the run-up to the hearing, liberal proponents of federal judicial involvement declared their own war--on Justice Scalia's right to participate in the legal debate.It began with a Newsweek report about a speech Scalia delivered on March 8 at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland. (Unfortunately, no transcript of his remarks has been published.) There, Justice Scalia allegedly told attendees that...

He's ba-a-a-ck. Not that he ever really goes away. After all, he has life tenure. This time the Hon. Antonin Scalia was calling those of us who think of the Constitution of the United States as a living document "idiots." No, this wasn't Ann Coulter doing her stand-up routine, but rather an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Welcome to civil discourse, 21st century-style. A decent respect for those who hold to a different philosophy of law, or of anything else, now seems to have gone the way of powdered wigs, dress swords and chivalry in general. This time...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia fondly remembers carrying a rifle around New York City as a boy and says outdoorsmen should attack the idea that guns are only used for crimes. An avid outdoorsmen who's hunted with Vice President Dick Cheney, Scalia spoke Saturday at the National Wild Turkey Federation's annual convention. "The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed," Scalia told the audience of about 2,000. "I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms," said Scalia, noting that as a youth in...

Justice Antonin Scalia certainly has poor judgment when it comes to vacations. Justice Scalia was apparently unchastened by the criticism of his 2004 duck-hunting excursion with Vice President Dick Cheney, one of that term's most prominent Supreme Court litigants. Last September, he skipped the swearing-in of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. because of another ethically dubious trip, this time to the posh Ritz-Carlton at the Beaver Creek ski resort in Colorado. He was there to teach a 10-hour seminar over a couple of days for a conservative group, the Federalist Society. "Nightline" recently reported that the gig had left Justice...

Al Franken stepped out of his comfortable echo-chamber of Air America on Monday night and was given more than one lesson by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The C-List political commentator attempted to rip off a sophomoric shot at Justice Scalia, but was quickly embarrassed, according to a report in the NY Post. Franken, apparently unaware of exactly how far he was stepping up in class, was chided "as if he were a delinquent schoolboy at Time Warner Center on Monday night.

In the great Alito-Scalito debate, everyone makes one mistake: They seem to assume that if Samuel Alito is as conservative as Antonin Scalia, that's about as conservative as a judge can be. Not so. In important ways, Samuel Alito could prove more conservative than Antonin Scalia. And the record suggests he will.Yes, Alito shares Justice Antonin Scalia's ambivalence toward judicial activism. Both men tout their own restraint in deferring to majorities that step on individual rights (including a woman's decision whether to bear a child). Both men also act aggressively to override majorities that touch states' rights like sovereign immunity...

THE ONE THING people seem to know for sure about Samuel Alito is his nickname: "Scalito." The name is meant to denote Alito's similarities to associate Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, whom the Senate confirmed, on Ronald Reagan's urging, to the Court in 1986. It's a catchy moniker, and rolls off the tongue, and may, if the media takes its cues from the press release manufacturers at the Democratic National Committee, become the catchphrase of Alito's upcoming Senate confirmation hearings.Which would be a shame. The nickname is misleading. The two men may share a vowel at the end of their...

Per Fox News...

In an interview set for broadcast on Monday, leading conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia appears to be defending Harriet Miers against critics who say she doesn't have the qualifications to sit on the High Court. "I think it's a good thing to have people from all sorts of backgrounds [on the Court]," Scalia tells CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, as the debate rages over Miers' lack of judical experience. Without mentioning the Bush nominee by name, the conservative legal icon said that the High Court needed someone who had never served as a judge to take the place of the late...

The government is privileged to choose what artwork is worthwhile without being accused of censorship as long as it is funding the art, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Thursday. ``The First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the tune,'' Scalia said at a symposium entitled ``American Society and the Arts,'' hosted by the Juilliard School. Scalia discussed and fielded questions about only the arts. He said he was not suggesting that the government not fund the arts but that if it does, just like when it runs a...

But what kind of conservative? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 25, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Will George Bush be seen historically as the George Patton – or the George McClellan of the culture wars? That question endures. For with his nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, the president consciously chose to avoid battle with the Left. As he did not want a fight, Bush named a conservative without a single scar from the culture wars and no record of having served. He chose an establishment-conservative, not a warrior-conservative. Judge Roberts is a man of high...

If the White House has seemed a bit adrift on domestic matters, my guess is that's because they know something you don't know: The entire domestic debate is about to be taken up by a battle royale over two Supreme Court nominations. Social Security may not be going anywhere, but it makes little sense to try to introduce another major initiative when in a few weeks' time we are likely to have the mother of all partisan confrontations. The likely first move is the announcement that William Rehnquist is stepping down, opening up the job of chief justice of the...

WHEN U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (above) spoke Tuesday night at NYU's Vanderbilt Hall, "The room was packed with some 300 students and there were many protesters outside because of Scalia's vitriolic dissent last year in the case that overturned the Texas law against gay sex," our source reports. "One gay student asked whether government had any business enacting and enforcing laws against consensual sodomy. Following Scalia's answer, the student asked a follow-up: 'Do you sodomize your wife?' The audience was shocked, especially since Mrs. Scalia [Maureen] was in attendance. The justice replied that the question was unworthy of...

Let's talk about the arguments that will be made, court cases cited, the sound bites, and votes in Congress. Let's talk about what's going to happen. Chief Justice Rehnquist isn't going to be around forever, and I'd bet a beer that this is his last court session. Then the president gets to nominate a replacement. That replacement is someone who votes just like Rehnquist did when it comes to religious freedom issues. The court remains much the same. It's late in the president's second term when Sandra Day O'Connor and one other justice decide that they'd rather have their replacements...

Some court-watchers say Justice Antonin Scalia is on a "charm offensive" to become the next chief justice. Then he must have been taking the day off when he gave a speech last week and lashed out at the Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down the death penalty for juveniles, and at the idea of a "living Constitution." There is nothing charming about his view that judges have no business considering the constitutionality of aspects of the death penalty, or that the Constitution should be frozen in time. Justice Scalia dissented bitterly in this month's juvenile death penalty case. Reasonable minds...