Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia has attempted once again to speak privately in public. He recently appeared as a guest at Time Warner in the series of interviews conducted by Norman Pearlstine dubbed "Conversations on the Circle." It might have been better titled "Conversations in a Circle"—a closed circle, that is. Before a hundred or so journalists and business people, the chairman of Time Warner, Richard Parsons, announced just before the event that the interview was off the record.

For journalists you might have thought this would be highly insulting, provoking a mass walk-out. They were not warned in advance, and surely they have something better to do than sit at the feet of Justice Scalia for enlightenment. But the bovine press played right along, the exceptions being, of all people, two gossip columnists!

The NY Post's column "Page Six" revealed that at the beginning of the Q&A session, Al Franken got a lecture from Scalia on word usage—

Franken stood up in the back row and started talking about "judicial demeanor" and asking "hypothetically" about whether a judge should recuse himself if he had gone duck-hunting or flown in a private jet with a party in a case before his court.

Franken was clumsily referring to the fact that Scalia had gone hunting and flying with Dick Cheney before the 2000 election.

First, Scalia lectured Franken, "Demeanor is the wrong word. You mean ethics." Then he explained, "Ethics is governed by tradition. It has never been the case where you recuse because of friendship."

It behooves us all to cultivate the friendship of as many justices as possible. And of course, Justice Scalia is correct in his differentiation of 'demeanor' from 'ethics.' Demeanor refers to throwing a hissy fit whenever your words are recorded.

What Justice Scalia might have said

Aside from that brief contretemps with Al Franken, we would know nothing more about the event if it weren't for Lloyd Grove of The Daily News. Grove took a novel tack in his reporting—he reported it hypothetically, informing us what Justice Scalia might have said if he had been speaking on the record.

On the press—

Scalia famously has little use for the press - "You can dish it out, but you can't take it," he might have taunted his media-elite audience - and I half-expected his security detail to relieve me of my notebook.

So it's possible, hypothetically, that the justice is no fan of the 1964 Supreme Court decision that requires a public official to prove "actual malice," not just negligence, to win a libel case.

Scalia might have noted that "The press is the only business that is not held responsible for its negligence." He might have added: "The court just made it up and - whack! - it's off the democratic stage, just like abortion."

On Roe v. Wade—

"Even the people who like the result acknowledge that the opinion is absurd."

And most astonishingly, of the Supreme Court's decision to make George Bush President—

... Scalia might have mused: "What did you expect us to do? Turn the case down because it wasn't important enough? Or give the Florida Supreme Court another couple of weeks in which the United States could look ridiculous?"

That the Supreme Court took the case away from the Florida Supreme Court to prevent the United States from looking ridiculous has got to be one of the most ironic and misguided decisions of U.S. history. Not only should such a consideration never have entered into the deliberation, but look at the result: When the United States is not looking hostile, threatening and dangerous, it is mostly just looking ridiculous.

The NY Times also reported the event. Katharine Q. Seelye's story was not about Scalia's talk but about the lèse majesté of the two columnists and Time Warner's displeasure with Lloyd Grove. True to their masters, the only news that the Times let leak was a repeat of the reports by the gossip columnists.