At NRO, Jonathan Keim: The Originalist: A new play — superb in its acting, muddled in its writing — about Justice Antonin Scalia. Among his criticisms:
Strand’s Scalia … muses confidentially that originalism could “set things right again in this country,” that he is “one of the last preservationists” of the Constitution, and so forth. And Strand’s Scalia is devastated by not being appointed chief justice, because that would have “changed the world.” But no originalist — least of all Justice Scalia — would make starry-eyed claims that originalism could fix everything. Congress and the president can, do, and will continue to make bad laws. Originalists assert only that the meaning of statutes and the Constitution is fixed at the time of legislation and can be discerned and applied through faithful application of traditional legal methods. This is not quite bumper-sticker material, but it’s an eminently realistic way to view the law.
Posted at 6:02 AM