[Overpaid Slacker]

Tech -
Rehnquist was a pretty darned conservative Justice before he was elevated to Chief Justice. The move moderated him. Maybe the same will happen to Scalia if elevated? And it's not like the CJ gets 2 votes or anything.

Having studied Con Law pretty extensively, Scalia is one of the finest jurists the Court has known, and even his detractors (who know what they're talking about) acknowledge that. He has one of the keenest minds and devastating writing styles. Read some of his dissents. He is a constructionist, and doesn't believe in finding/creating new "rights" in a document that doesn't contain and didn't contemplate them -- the Right to Privacy, for instance. What a joke.

But it sounds like you have an issue with constructionists ... many activists do; and Scalia gives them fits b/c he decimates them. So, being unable to respond to his points, they attack him ad hominem and call him "stupid" or "biased" (who isn't... I mean, really) or some other label intended to damage the arguments indirectly that they cannot assail on their merits.

IMHO, the Left has not had such an excellent writer/thinker on the bench in my lifetime, anyway.

JP