Unfortunately for Scalia, that nomination didn't go to Elena Kagan – Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor the first time around. But, the next vacant seat did go to Kagan. The Washington Post reported on how the other justices have remembered Scalia.
"During her confirmation meetings with senators, Kagan had vowed to go hunting to allay their concerns about her cultural awareness on the issue of guns. When she joined the court she asked her friend, Scalia, to take her," Axelrod wrote. "The two who occasionally shot intellectual darts at each other, became regular – if unlikely – hunting partners."
Axelrod went on to detail how one of the most liberal justices on the court and one of the most conservative justices on the court found common ground and became close friends. It's important to note that neither one put aside their differences, they argued ferociously in their legal opinions, but because of their shared intellectual rigor and their shared experiences as lifetime appointees on the most powerful court in the nation, found a way to relate to each other.
Justice Scalia didn't want someone on the court to share his beliefs, he wanted someone who had their own beliefs, and the legal and intellectual acumen to fight for them.
"We have become inured to the animus that characterizes the relationship between our elected officials in these highly partisan times. But members of the court, free from the pressures of running for office, relate to each other in a different way. So much so, that a conservative lion would lobby the President's adviser for his liberal friend," Axelrod wrote this morning for CNN.
[Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images]
