DADWAGON

How did I miss this fact before? Antonin Scalia, the core of the fundamentalist—er, sorry, originalist—wing of the Supreme Court, has nine children. Nine.

As Michael Kinsley notes in today’s semi-satirical essay:

Is this normal? Or should I say “normal,” as some people choose to define it? Can he represent the views of ordinary Americans when he practices such a minority lifestyle? After all, having nine children is far more unusual in this country than, say, being a lesbian.

Given that he’s out-procreated the Gosselins by one, I see a reality-TV series in his future. Nino’s Nine. I’d watch it: Even though I find his political tilt infuriating, Scalia is a genius of legal scholarship, and (to my reading) has the most formidable pure logician’s brain on the court. I’ve love to see him in a position where he’s trying to parse a phrase like, say, “well-regulated militia,” one syllable at a time, only to find that, as he speaks, his child has quietly been smearing jelly on him.

In all seriousness, though, you have to wonder how much of an involved parent he was. The demands of a career that takes one to the Supreme Court at the age of 50 involve a lot of nights and weekends at work. I have to assume that he handed most of the child-rearing off, and that what little time he had to offer was split nine ways. Mrs. Scalia is either saintly, exhausted, bitter, a deep and true believer in her husband’s primacy, or (plausibly) all of the above.