Jennifer Senior at New York magazine interviewed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and she wanted it to sound big: "most outsiders tend to regard him as either a demigod on stilts or a menace to democracy, depending on which side of the aisle they sit." She found him "more puckish than formal."
He informally dismissed the nation's top newspapers as too impossibly liberal to pay for, especially The Washington Post:
What’s your media diet? Where do you get your news?
Well, we get newspapers in the morning.
“We” meaning the justices?
No! Maureen and I.
Oh, you and your wife …
I usually skim them. We just get The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times. We used to get the Washington Post, but it just … went too far for me. I couldn’t handle it anymore.
What tipped you over the edge?
It was the treatment of almost any conservative issue. It was slanted and often nasty. And, you know, why should I get upset every morning? I don’t think I’m the only one. I think they lost subscriptions partly because they became so shrilly, shrilly liberal. [Emphasis in the original.]
So no New York Times, either?
No New York Times, no Post.
And do you look at anything online?
I get most of my news, probably, driving back and forth to work, on the radio.
Not NPR?
Sometimes NPR. But not usually.
Maybe he turns it off at the first sound of Nina Totenberg, NPR's "shrilly, shrilly liberal" Supreme Court reporter. Later, when Scalia laments the passing away of bipartisan Washington gatherings like those at the house of the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, the magazine writer tried for an “aha” moment:
True, though earlier you expressed your preference for conservative media, which itself can be isolating in its own way.
Oh, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon! [Laughs.] Social intercourse is quite different from those intellectual outlets I respect and those that I don’t respect. I read newspapers that I think are good newspapers, or if they’re not good, at least they don’t make me angry, okay? That has nothing to do with social intercourse. That has to do with “selection of intellectual fodder,” if you will.
It never stops being amazing to watch liberals say conservatives get "isolated" in conservative media, trying to avoid the other point of view, and liberals.....never do that?
While discussing democracy during his last speech in Ethiopia on Tuesday, President Obama jokingly graded his presidency — Certified Fresh — and his imaginary 2016 chances.
“I actually think I’m a pretty good president," he said. "I think if I ran, I would win."
"But," he added, "I can’t."
He went on to promote the American style of government, noting that some African leaders "change the rules" to stay in office and only see their power end because of death or coups. "The point is," Obama said, "I don’t understand why people want to stay so long. Especially when they’ve got a lot of money."
He noted that he's “still a pretty young man, but I know that someone with new insights and new energy will be good for my country ... Old people think old ways. You can see my gray hair, I’m getting old.”
After the speech Obama was scheduled to return to the U.S., where the leading presidential candidates from his party are both older than him.
