Continuing from my Part 1 post (and numbering serially from that post), I address more of Robert Reich’s claims in his blog post that wildly attacks Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia for supposedly politicizing the Supreme Court:

4. Reich claims that Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, is now “lobbying for … the repeal of what she terms the ‘unconstitutional’ healthcare legislation.”

Reich provides no evidence that Mrs. Thomas is “lobbying for … the repeal” of Obamacare. I’m reliably informed that the assertion is not true—that she is in fact doing nothing on Obamacare. Insofar as Reich might be relying on the insipid letter from 74 House Democrats that he treats seriously, that letter does not even actually assert, much less offer any evidence, that Mrs. Thomas is lobbying for the repeal of Obamacare.

Nor is it fair for Reich to assert, without more, that Mrs. Thomas has termed Obamacare “unconstitutional.” As this New York Times article discusses, that term was used in a memorandum prepared by the Conservative Action Project. When Mrs. Thomas discovered that her name was among the signatories to the memorandum, she asked to have it removed (and it was removed). If Reich has any basis for disputing the account that her name “appeared on the memorandum by mistake,” he should state it. But, instead, he doesn’t even acknowledge that account.

By the way, if it’s Reich’s position that a judge must recuse from any case presenting a legal issue on which the judge’s spouse has publicly expressed a personally held legal position—and, to be clear, it’s not obvious to me that that position would be wrong, though it’s much broader than what I’ve taken—then perhaps he and Common Cause can turn their attention to an actual flagrant case for recusal.

5. In an artful deception, Reich writes:

Scalia isn’t much better. In December he met in a closed-door session with Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Caucus, a group formed in large part to fight for the repeal of health-care reform. Can you imagine the firestorm if Justice Sonia Sotomayor met in secret with the House Progressive Caucus?

What Reich doesn’t disclose is that Scalia spoke on separation of powers at an event open to all members of Congress—and in fact attended by some liberal Democrats, who have attested that Scalia’s discussion was purely legal. The event was by no means “secret,” as his juxtaposed rhetorical question falsely implies. (Addendum: Also, it occurred in January, not December. Reich seems unable to get anything right.)

In sum, the chair of Common Cause has revealed himself to be an untrustworthy scoundrel, pretending to care about “everything the Supreme Court stands for” while in fact firing dishonest cheap shots at justices whose rulings he dislikes and whom he hopes to discredit.