After Scalia

THE death of Antonin Scalia deprives America of a brilliant legal mind and a puckish wit (see our ). He poked fun not only at lawyers arguing before him, but also at himself. Asked for the secret of his long marriage, the father of nine quipped how his wife had made it clear “that if we split up, I would get the children.” The debate about how to replace Justice Scalia, by contrast, looks set to be crass, intellectually dishonest and not even slightly amusing.The departure of a Supreme Court justice is always momentous; Mr Scalia’s is doubly so. He was the court’s conservative heavyweight, whose eloquence and logic inspired his allies and forced his opponents to sharpen their arguments. His absence leaves the court balanced between its conservative and liberal wings. His replacement will tilt it one way or the other, perhaps for many years. And this is election season. Small wonder that a power struggle has erupted over the process of picking a new justice (see ).