Editorial: Scalia and trustworthiness

Saturday, April 15, 2006 | 7:34 a.m.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was widely criticized in 2004 for not recusing himself from a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal to let the public see records from a White House energy task force.

Scalia was under pressure to recuse himself because Cheney had brought Scalia along on a weekend hunting trip at the same time that the Supreme Court was considering the case. (Luckily for Scalia, Cheney's aim was better on that outing.) In a 7-2 decision, with Scalia in the majority, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the administration.

Scalia, during a lecture last week at the University of Connecticut's law school, still believes he was correct. He seems baffled that anyone would question his integrity. "For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life," he said. "I think the proudest thing I have done on the bench is not allow myself to be chased off that case."

Really? So we are supposed to just trust Scalia, or any other Supreme Court justice for that matter, and never question whether they might have hidden agendas or motives in cases that come before the court? The arrogance displayed by Scalia is astounding, but when you stop to think about it for a moment, it isn't that much different than that possessed by his hunting buddy, the vice president.

In the end, Cheney's stubbornness in not releasing information - including the names of energy executives he met with in secret, such as nuclear power executives who want to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada - prevented the taxpayers from knowing just how pervasive the executives' role was in charting the administration's energy policies. And, with respect to the Yucca Mountain Project and the fast track it is now on, it appears in retrospect that the White House practically let the nuclear power industry draft its nuclear waste policy, right down to the last comma.