What’s a nice Jewish boy from Toronto doing working for an Italian Catholic, staunchly conservative, notoriously confrontational judge in Washington? That’s a question for Yaakov Roth, the Harvard Law School grad who was recently hired by Justice Antonin Scalia to work as a Supreme Court law clerk, beginning in July 2008. The 22-year-old graduated summa cum laude from Harvard (a very rare accomplishment — Scalia himself only received his degree from the school magna cum laude) this past spring, and for the summer he is working for a lower circuit judge in Boston. Roth, who is Orthodox, said that his religious beliefs will not interfere with his interpretation of the legal system or with his work for Scalia, a self-proclaimed “originalist.”
“I can’t think of many approaches to Judaism that are incompatible with the Constitution,” Roth told The Shmooze. “I’m generally sympathetic to [Scalia’s] approach,” he said, adding: “Look, I’ve done three years of law school. At this point, I can’t label myself.”
It’s obvious to assume that Roth will be working long, hard hours next summer, but he noted: “I don’t work on Shabbat, and I think [Scalia] would be sympathetic to that. It’s not an option for me. The year won’t be easy, because I’ll have to make up for that.”
And then there’s the issue of food, which is of utmost importance to The Shmooze. Is the Supreme Court cafeteria kosher? “It would definitely be nice, but I’m not expecting anything,” Roth said. “At this point, I’m used to it.”
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LA COSA PARLA PER SE NEWS ITEM: Justice [sic] Antonin Scalia, responding to a reference to Bush v. Gore in a CBS interview, advises all and sundry to "Get over it." Antonin Scalia once told a critical audience-member at a college to “get a life”. Was he pathetically attempting to be hip? He is probably clueless as to the correct usage, and usual context, of such putdowns . . . although in this case it actually was a good choice, by this infamously condescending prick. (The putdown “get a life!” is often used by someone who is being lazy and clueless, failing to grasp some point raised by their “lifeless” target.) Scalia loves to be flippant. Perhaps that explains his nonchalance about the installation of George the Usurper. One must wonder, however, how this nation will, if ever, “get over” the results of the lazy and impetuous action by Scalia and his like-minded colleagues in Bush v. Gore. I paste below my comments from 2005, following a profile of this purportedly great mind. (FYI, the piece mentioned his love of theatrics during his college years.) MAKING LIGHT – a reaction to “Supreme Confidence”, Margaret Talbot’s March 28, 2005 New Yorker profile of Antonin Scalia Nino Scalia is clever, but is he brilliant? Maybe so – because he’s managed to convince himself and others, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that he’s intellectually consistent. As a purported conservative and “non-activist” judge, he advocates deference to the legislative branch(es). . . but cares not for legislative histories that can illuminate the intended purpose of [often clumsily-drafted] statutes. He likewise professes respect for those powers “reserved to the States”, but was more than happy to run roughshod over Florida’s vote-counting apparatus in 2000. (This should be his great Bush v. Gore embarrassment, not the fact that the opinion was of limited scope.) Nixon’s tapes, he said, should have been rightly off limits, yet he professes an understanding of Checks and Balances. (In his love of metaphor, Nino the absolutist tends to ignore material differences of degree: Hence, water and fire are, in themselves, necessary and good; flood and conflagration, however, are bad. Nevertheless, he acknowledges no circumstance in which anything short of limitless executive privilege is acceptable or desirable.) Perhaps Nino should have remained an entertainer; or, more accurately, perhaps he should have confined himself to those stages officially designated as theatrical. A sense of humor, even when bordering on cheekiness, is welcome in a jurist. Jehovah knows: As one who briefly practiced law, I certainly welcomed that rare trait when I found it. (And many a lawyer and law student has been happily diverted by those published opinions in which the bench takes a gratuitous, amusing digression. In one of my all-time favorites, the federal court pondered the definition, and applicability, of the term chutzpah.) However, neither cheek nor chutzpah should ever supersede intellectual rigor or intellectual honesty. The avowedly religion-oriented Nino (who, in my humble opinion, is extremely results-oriented) spouted, in Lee v. Weisman, that “Church and state would not be such a difficult subject if religion were, as the Court apparently thinks it to be, some purely personal avocation that can be indulged entirely in secret, like pornography.” (He certainly has the stones to kill more than one bird at a time.) What Nino The Entertainer apparently forgot (or would have his audience overlook) is the fact that no serious church/state separatist has ever advocated a law or policy that would prevent like-minded believers from voluntarily coming together – in a church, synagogue, temple, mosque or living-room of their choice – for worship, discussion or “Bingo!” (to quote one of Nino’s pithier contributions to oral argument before the Court.) This kind of attempted grift (and flippancy) is worthy of a con man, not a Supreme Court justice. I’m no absolutist, so I give credit where credit is due; I applaud Nino for his occasional judge-like impartiality (such as letting a few weirdos burn a flag if they so desire to express themselves.) All in all, however, it’s fascinating that the young Georgetown valedictorian saw himself as a “hunter” for Truth. (Think Nimrod, not Diogenes.) This benighted hunter is armed with bull, and loaded for bear. He makes much light, but sheds little. J.D. Glick, J.D. aka Liberal Dose, 2005