Be on guard for the day when this anecdote falsely attributed to Antonin Scalia becomes lefty "fake but accurate" conventional wisdom about the Supreme Court justice:
Earlier today, an Arizona newspaper, the East Valley Tribune, attributed remarks to Justice Scalia that were quite stunning:
Using his "originalist'' philosophy, Scalia said he likely would have dissented from the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared school segregation illegal and struck down the system of "separate but equal'' public schools. He said that decision, which overturned earlier precedent, was designed to provide an approach the majority liked better. "I will stipulate that it will,'' Scalia said. But he said that doesn't make it right. "Kings can do some stuff, some good stuff, that a democratic society could never do,'' he continued. "Hitler developed a wonderful automobile,'' Scalia said. "What does that prove?''
Jack Balkin at Balkinization watched the Scalia video and found the newspaper got it very wrong:
At 23:45 Justice Scalia is clearly misquoted. He says that he stands with Justice Harlan, who dissented in Plessy v. Ferguson. He argues that the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits racial discrimination.
Woe betide him if Scalia ever tries to buy an NFL team, look for this to magically appear on his Wikipedia page and quickly migrate to Think Progress, MSNBC, and lazy sports columnists. To their credit, TPM and Huffington Post have corrected their original, incorrect reports.
The newspaper should apologize. No such luck thus far.
