They were so close their families met frequently and celebrated the New Year together.
Their friendship even inspired a comic opera.
“They held very strong, very different views.
She was the best of colleagues, as she is the best of friends.
I wish her a hundred years.”
“What’s not to like?”
Scalia once said of Ginsburg: ““What’s not to like?
Except her views on the law.
We agree on a whole lot of stuff.
Ruth is really bad only on the knee-jerk stuff.”
Ginsburg, for her part, used Scalia’s own words to describe him: “I attack ideas.
I don’t attack people.
Some very good people have some very bad ideas” (viaUSA Today).
Sutton asked: “So what good have all these roses done for you?
Name one five-four case of any significance where you got Justice Ginsburg’s vote.”
The elder Scalia replied: " Some things are more important than votes.”
From our years together at the D.C.
Circuit, we were best buddies.
It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend."
There seems to be much the country’s current politicians could learn from this unlikely friendship.
