Obama, justices pay respects to Scalia

The president and first lady Michelle Obama were greeted by Chief Justice John Roberts, spoke with some Scalia family members and briefly stood in silence, heads bowed, in front of Scalia’s casket during an afternoon visit. “You never say to a president for certain you wouldn’t do anything, but I have no – look at me now – I have no desire to sit on the Supreme Court, none”, Biden said. With all these moving parts, the fight to replace Justice Scalia promises to be an exciting one.

Two federal appeals court judges who have been mentioned as possible Supreme Court nominees – Sri Srinivasan and Patricia Millett – also stopped by Scalia’s casket and paused to admire his official portrait sitting on an easel beside wreaths and bouquets of flowers. One of them, Father Paul Scalia, is a Roman Catholic priest who will celebrate his father’s funeral Mass and give the homily.

Besides all the conspiracy theories about Scalia’s death, I am baffled by the speed at which the Republican leadership started condemning Obama for even letting the word “nominate” enter his brain. He was nominated for that position by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

His family said he died of natural causes. The rejection of such a nominee by the Republican-controlled Senate would all but guarantee the Democratic nominee for president in 2016 gets an incalculable number of women and/or black and Hispanic votes. An Obama appointment could tilt the conservative-leaning court to the left for the first time in decades.

The justice’s former law clerks will take turns standing vigil by their former boss throughout the day and night in a tradition most recently observed after the 2005 death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Instead, the vice president and his wife will attend the funeral at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Vice President Joe Biden will attend the funeral.