The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Reflections of a Counterclerk

Everyone has strong feelings about Justice Scalia. Lionized by the political right and demonized by the left, he has been among the most polarizing figures in American public life over the course of the last halfcentury. It is hardly surprising, then, that in the weeks since Justice Scalia’s death, the public discourse surrounding his legacy has exhibited something of a split personality. There have, of course, been plenty of appropriately respectful—even admiring—tributes from some of the Justice’s ideological adversaries; and here and there one of the Justice’s champions has acknowledged, with a hint of lament, the acerbic quality of some of his opinions and public comments.

For the most part, however, the Justice has been depicted as a flat character—or, more accurately, one of two flat characters: He is, on the one hand, the stalwart champion of law and judicial restraint—a paragon of integrity interested only in the dictates of legal texts and willing to cast aside his personal preferences to make way for outcomes commanded by sources he is bound to obey and powerless to change.