Justice Scalia Has No Robe

Earlier this week, "conservative intellectual" joined its half-brother, "compassionate conservatism," on the official list of oxymorons. The two terms are working hard to displace "military intelligence" from the top of the list.

Fat Tony Scalia is often cited as a great example of conservative intellect. He is articulate, witty, and crowned with a mind like a steel trap. On Wednesday, however, the Justice played buffoon during oral arguments in Salazar v. Buono. No excuses. He wasn't being flamboyantly provocative during a lecture or at a dinner party. Scalia was on the job; one of nine appointed as the final line of protection for our Constitution.

JUSTICE SCALIA: The cross doesn't honor non-Christians who fought in the war? Is that -- is that --

MR. ELIASBERG: I believe that's actually correct.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Where does it say that?

MR. ELIASBERG: It doesn't say that, but a cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins, and I believe that's why the Jewish war veterans --

JUSTICE SCALIA: It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It's the -- the cross is the -- is the most common symbol of -- of -- of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn't seem to me -- what would you have them erect? A cross -- some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?

MR. ELIASBERG: Well, Justice Scalia, if I may go to your first point. The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.

(Laughter.)

MR. ELIASBERG: So it is the most common symbol to honor Christians.

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion.

MR. ELIASBERG: Well, my -- the point of my -- point here is to say that there is a reason the Jewish war veterans came in and said we don't feel honored by this cross. This cross can't honor us because it is a religious symbol of another religion.


An "outrageous conclusion?" One of conservatisms leading lights lacks the imagination to see any part of the world, any other people, as existing differently from his experience. No wonder the Republicans went bonkers over Sonia Sotomayor's wise Latina comments and Obama adding empathy to the SCOTUS job description. Conservatives have locked themselves inside their gated communities of a white Christian nation. Everyone different is a threatening enemy including, as Scalia sees it, vocal decedents of dead Jewish war veterans.

One by one, the great conservative thinkers parade naked through the streets, thrilled by the cheers of the few, but naked all the same.