Justice Scalia Explains Sicilian Body Talk

"Famously feisty Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia denied that he made an obscene gesture Sunday inside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, accusing the Herald staff of 'watching too many Sopranos episodes," says a Boston Herald article quoted by Howard Kurtz in the WaPo. True to liberal smear traditions, the Herald had accused Scalia of using an obscene gesture in church while talking to a [Irish-American duncette] ambush-artiste. Scalia wrote the Herald, which has the following take:

"In a letter to the editor, an almost unheard-of step for a Supreme Court justice, Scalia said a reporter misinterpreted the gesture he made when she asked whether his participation in Sunday's special Mass for lawyers might cause some people to question his impartiality in matters of church and state.

"'Your reporter, an up-and-coming "gotcha" star named Laurel J. Sweet, asked me (o-so-sweetly) what I said to those people . . . ,' Scalia wrote to Executive Editor Kenneth A. Chandler. 'I responded, jocularly, with a gesture that consisted of fanning the fingers of my right hand under my chin. Seeing that she did not understand, I said, 'That's Sicilian,' and explained its meaning.'

"In his letter, Scalia goes on to cite Luigi Barzini's book, 'The Italians': 'The extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chin means: "I couldn't care less. It's no business of mine. Count me out." From watching too many episodes of the Sopranos, your staff seems to have acquired the belief that any Sicilian gesture is obscene - especially when made by an "Italian jurist." (I am, by the way, an American jurist.)' "

Obscenity-spewing leftists yearned to have evidence that a distinguished member of the conservative right joined their smutty vulgar rotter-mode, but it was not to be. Once again, the journalistic left practiced inventive journalism, following the almost daily example of the ultra-left juggernaut New York Times. [See following blog for NYT inventiveness on the FISA judge testimony before the Senate Judiciary Cte.]