Antonin Scalia, The Essential Scalia ****

Justice Scalia has a reputation as an excellent and sometimes funny writer. Of course, he is also known for his conservative views and his enjoyment of bantering with the other side. I'm always interested in having smart articulate people attempt to persuade me to their positions, and I'm always interested in good writers.

Scalia is indeed an excellent and sometimes funny writer. Justice Elena Kagan's forward ("I envy the reader who has picked up this book") builds anticipation. The editors chose and organized the selections so that they present Scalia's fundamental principles clearly. Scalia makes his arguments forcefully, mostly without legal argle-bargle although legalese does drift in (fittingly) to the pieces in the final section on administrative law.

I wish the collection could somehow incorporate a contrasting perspective. For example, Scalia says "originalism is the only game in town –– the only real, verifiable criterion that can prevent judges from making the Constitution say whatever they think it should say." This is patently false, and I wish there was some way to include a critic to explain why, something like the Philosophers and Their Critics books. Scalia liked to be challenged.

I found Scalia's articles about method to be mostly convincing, the articles and opinions about specific cases less so. It's like I always say about libertarianism: the principles are very attractive, but they quickly lead to crazy-sounding results when applied to real-life situations.