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Where's justice in America? Gone hunting.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia really should recuse himself from the decision on whether Cheney will have to disclose the information on his infamous energy commission meetings. As CNN points out, Scalia and Cheney are long-time buddies, and "Scalia, the vice president and two of Scalia's relatives flew together on a government jet to Louisiana for the duck hunt at a camp owned by an oil rig services executive." This seems an even more clear-cut case of conflict of interest than when Scalia led the decision to make Bush president even though his own son worked for the law firm representing Bush. Scalia insists he can be impartial, but come on. This is a decision that could affect the career and reputation of his good hunting buddy. He won't even be a little bit influenced, even subconsciously? And even if he amazingly could be truly impartial, his participation will still cast doubt on the decision. But in the end he won't recuse himself, and I'll make a wild prediction that, as in many other cases, the conservative-majority Supreme Court decision will miraculously turn out to be along party lines, 5 to 4, in favor of the Republicans. Of course, disclosure or no disclosure, the results of the meetings are obvious. Most of the Bush energy and environmental policies actually increase pollution and poisons in our air, land and water, and reduce costs, restrictions and controls for energy companies, especially in the heavily favored oil and coal industries -- industries Cheney and the Bush family have personal history, interests and connections in. Respond to this posting

Posted by Randy Henderson at April 27, 2004 09:27 AM