E-Mail of the Week

In response to Friday's column that mentioned President Obama's attack on the Supreme Court for its decision in Citizens United v. FEC during his SOTU speech, I received an e-mail from one Pat Barker. You will find it below with my response.

Gil,

When you write an article make sure you have all the facts. Scumbag Scalia wasn't in attendance. I guess he thinks he's above listening to colored people speak.

Pat

Pat,

I stand corrected on the number of Supreme Court justices who attended the SOTU. In fact, not only was Anton Scalia absent but so were Justices Thomas and Stevens.

In the TV coverage I saw that night I was fooled by the fact that there were 9 people, dressed in black, sitting in the seats reserved for the justices. That three of them were, on closer inspection, not justices but clerks, other guests or family members, led to my erroneous assumption that all nine justices were in attendence.

Of course, none of that changes the argument I made in the column that it was "astonishing" to hear the President of the United States attack the court in front of Congress, as well as a national TV audience and misrepresent its ruling.

Still, thank you for your excellent advice about having "all the facts" before I write a column. I hope you don't mind a bit of advice in return.

Calling an accomplished justice like Anton Scalia a "scumbag" just because you disagree with his interpretation of the Constitution says more about you than it does about him. You should refrain from using such language if you want to be taken seriously as a decent person and not a name-calling partisan ideologue.

As for your suggestion that Scalia refused to attend the speech because he is a racist, are you willing to impute the same motive to Justice Thomas and Stevens?

Hillary Clinton wasn't there either. Does that make her a racist "scumbag" too? I don't think so.

UPDATE: Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett believes Obama owes the court an apology.