Leahy And Lieberman Query High Court On Ethics Of Scalia Vacation With Cheney
Dear Chief Justice Rehnquist:
It is with regret that we write to inquire about published reports that Justice Antonin Scalia recently spent extended time with Vice President Richard Cheney on an out-of-town trip. Coming just three weeks after the Supreme Court voted to grant a petition for certiorari in a case in which the Vice President is a principal party, this trip raises questions. When a sitting judge, poised to hear a case involving a particular litigant, goes on a vacation with that litigant, reasonable people will question whether that judge can be a fair and impartial adjudicator of that man’s case or his opponent’s claims. …
Sincerely,
PATRICK LEAHY
Ranking Member Committee on the Judiciary
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN
Ranking Member
Committee on Governmental Affairs
mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: Impeach Scalia!
But Scalia rejected that concern Friday, telling the Times, “I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned.”
Scalia’s refusal to
recuse himself in the Cheney case is just another example of the arrogance of the Right. It is seen in the unelected Bush and his pal
Ashcroft. These people all believe they are above the law and propriety. It is only we commoners who are held to a higher standard.
But you overlook the arrogance of the Left. To villify Bush with the same kind of insane
disregard for the country’s needs as Clinton was villified, has driven a lot of Democrats, like me, who worked for the Clinton and
Dukakis campaigns, to vote for Bush as the only choice in the war on terrorism.
The putridness of this lack of choice is something I
will always deeply resent the Democratic party for having left me. It has failed the country in time of national crisis.