I protest.

Impeach Scalia.

It turns out that Scalia's little duck-hunting trip with Chaney was nothing new, at least according to the LA Times: Scalia Took Trip Set Up by Lawyer in Two Cases. It appears that he took a pheasant-hunting trip with and arranged by Stephen McAllister, the Dean of the University of Kansas School of Law. As it happens, two weeks before the trip, McAllister argued in defense of

a Kansas law to confine sex offenders after they complete their prison terms.

Two weeks after the trip, the dean was before the high court to lead the state's defense of a Kansas prison program for treating sex criminals.

Scalia was hosted by McAllister, who also served as Kansas state solicitor, when he visited the law school to speak to students. At Scalia's request, McAllister arranged for the justice to go pheasant hunting after the law school event.

Scalia sided with Kansas in both of the cases McAllister argued.

Scalia's response?

"I do not think that spending time at a law school in which the counsel in pending cases was the dean could reasonably cause my impartiality to be questioned. Nor could spending time with the governor of a state that had matters before the court."

Well, call me unreasonable, but it certainly causes me to question his impartiality. Others seem to be a tad concerned as well. Consider that

Federal law says that "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned."

Whether or not these events actually compromised Scalia's "impartiality" (not that Scalia even knows the meaning of that word, much less applies it to his own life), it certainly calls that impartiality into question publically. I have a very low opinion of Scalia at the best of times, but in my view this pretty much proves that the man is simply not suited to be a Supreme Court Justice. It is clear that he cannot or will not keep his personal life and views separate from his professional, legal duties and obligations.

The man should not be on the Supreme Court.