Yet another bit of turmoil stemming from Justice Antonin Scalia’s BBC interview on the constitutionality of torture.  Jan Greenberg, in her Legalities column, raises the  time-worn but still  manly Scalia connection to Jack Bauer.

But in the interview, it’s Scalia who seems to be taking folks to task–venting about people who make quick moral judgments about torture without considering the hard hypotheticals. The choice made, he suggested to the BBC reporter, depends on the circumstances. 

The interview has Nino calling the rejection of torture as a lawful means of prevent nuclear holocaust in Los Angeles (does this plot line sound familiar?) “absurd”.

Oh, that Justice Scalia is a sly one.  He sucked Jan Greenberg right into his trap.  But he’s not gonna get me, nosireebob.

Listen to the timbre of his voice.  He can barely keep himself from laughing.  He can barely hold it in.  People, he’s messing with us.  He’s playing with our heads.  He’s outsmarted us!

Justice Scalia doesn’t really believe this.  Come on.  This is one very smart guy.  Do you really think he’d be talking up some Brit reporter (Brit, for goodness sake!) about an issue that is likely to come before the Supreme Court, expressing his prejudice in advance of a case and controversy? 

This is his recusal trap.  He’s set himself up so that when the torture case finally makes its way to the Supremes, he’s forced to offer his profuse apologies and beg off the case, finding himself to have “inadvertently” expressed opinions on the subject that would create the grave appearance of impropriety. 

But why would he do this?  Come on.  He knows torture is wrong, but if he’s forced to take sides, his fan club is going to burn his signed decisions in a huge bonfire.  How could he abandon his favorite fictional character, Jack?

But he sounded sorta equivocal.  Not really, unless you think the word absurd is open to more interpretations that most.  Sure, he had to keep it a little wiggly, or nobody would buy into his scheme.  We all know he’s too smart to do something so blatantly foolish as make a clear, blanket statement of position on a highly controversial subject likely to come before the Supreme Court.  That would be crazy, right?

But how could he not know that by giving this interview and making these statements, he would be compelled to recuse himself from the Court’s consideration of cases of monumental significance to the nation?  Exactly.  How could he not know.