June 27, 2015
Ooooh! Scalia Just Burned EDGE. Now It's Your Turn
EDGE READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Ever wanted to get slammed by the Supreme Court's crankiest justice? Here's your chance. Try Slate's "Antonin Scalia Sick Burn Generator."
The four published dissenting opinions in Friday Supreme Court decision that opened the doors to nationwide marriage equality were without a doubt extreme. None more so than that of Justice Antonin Scalia, in which the level of vitriol led right wing new agency Fox News' court correspondent Shannon Bream to say "Justice Scalia is not a good loser."
What made Scalia's dissent in the marriage case different from other scathing opinions written by the justice in the past, was the personal attacks he made on his colleagues, who he alluded were snobby elitists ill-equipped to decide on laws that govern the heartland.
"Take, for example, this Court,which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. " Scalia wrote. "Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count)."
The Californian Scalia referred to was Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose reading of the majority opinion brought tears to the eyes of many present in Washington, DC Friday.
Lifting segments of Kennedy's opinion, Scalia slammed his fellow justice's writing, which he said was "couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic," adding that Kennedy's "opinion's showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent."
This the day after he called the majority opinion on Obamacare "jiggery-pokery," (whatever that is).
Scalia's vitriol led the writers at Slate to create the interactive Mad Libs inspired "Antonin Scalia Sick Burn Generator," which uses real quotes from the high court's crankiest justice to insult even the humblest among us.
For example. According to Slate, this is what Scalia would say about EDGE.
"One would think that EDGE Media Network's positions are a mystical Kulturkampf. I would hide my head in a bag."
To get your Scalia insult, click here.