[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 22 (Thursday, February 26, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE DEFENSE OF IMPOSSIBILITY

  (Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I think it was highly 
inappropriate for Justice Scalia to go on a hunting trip with Vice 
President Cheney when he was a defendant in a case, but it is 
inaccurate to say that this calls into question Justice Scalia's 
impartiality. You cannot call into question that which does not exist.
  Questioning Justice Scalia's impartiality is like questioning Janet 
Jackson and Justin Timberlake's sense of propriety, or Saddam Hussein's 
weapons of mass destruction, or the President's plan to cut the budget 
deficit in half in 5 years.
  In fact, if you read Justice Scalia's opinions, they are singularly 
devoid of impartiality. Here is a man of very vigorous views and 
prejudices, and he does not see any reason why he should not write them 
into various opinions.
  So, I guess in some ways this is a defense of Justice Scalia. I wish 
he had refrained from going on that hunting trip with the Vice 
President, but those who accuse him of having damaged his impartiality, 
he has a defense of that, well-known to lawyers, it is a defense of 
impossibility.

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