When Harry Met Scalia....

Matt Stoller at MyDD has a good summary of Harry Reid’s appearance on Meet the Press this weekend. Reid, the newly appointed Senate Minority Leader, effectively took the President to task on some key issues, and additionally reassured we Lefties who were concerned about his pro-life position that he would not support the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

But just as I started to think that perhaps I had too hastily dismissed his appointment as further evidence of the Dems’ poor showing as an opposition party, he goes and proves me right:

[T]he Nevada Democrat said that he could support Thomas' fellow conservative, Justice Antonin Scalia, if he were nominated [as a possible replacement for Chief Justice William Rehnquist].

"I cannot dispute the fact, as I have said, that this is one smart guy," Reid said of Scalia. "And I disagree with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reasons for arriving at those results are very hard to dispute."

Citing a hunting trip Scalia took with Dick Cheney before hearing a case involving the commission the vice president set up to work on an energy bill, Reid said the justice has some ethics problems.

"So we have to get over this," he said.

It boggles the mind. He says he could support Scalia’s appointment as Chief Justice, but then goes on to list the very reasons why, as a representative of the Left, he shouldn’t—disagreeing with his interpretation of the law and finding his ethics wanting. Why on earth should the Left support an ethically-challenged Justice who disagrees with us on almost every position? Simply because he’s “one smart guy,” isn’t good enough. I can think of a few men of history who may have been deemed smart, but bad for their countries.

This is unacceptable. And the Democrats wonder why they need to worry about losing their base to third parties like the Greens. Stop wondering, idiots. This is why.