Scalia Strikes Back

A Justice of the Supreme Court seldom expresses himself in a letter to the editor. Justice Scalia, however has done so before. He just sent another letter, this time to the Boston Herald. In it he takes just a wee bit of exception to the nasty hit piece they did the other day accusing him of making an obscene gesture.

“Your reporter, an up-and-coming ‘gotcha’ star named Laurel J. Sweet, asked me (o-so-sweetly) what I said to those people. . .,” Scalia wrote to Executive Editor Kenneth A. Chandler. “I responded, jocularly, with a gesture that consisted of fanning the fingers of my right hand under my chin. Seeing that she did not understand, I said, ‘That’s Sicilian,’ and explained its meaning.”

I like that: "up-and-coming ‘gotcha star". That about sums it up, too. The other funny thing is the original article expalined that Scalia was an "Italian jurist". Scalia corrected them and told them he was an American jurist.

H/T Betsy Newmark for the follow-up.

UPDATE: Volokh has the full text of the letter.