(CNN) -- Sam Alito doesn't have
"any complaints" about the press corps who cover the Supreme Court --
but the Associate Justice could do without "incredibly snarky"
columnists.
"Some
of the columns that are written, you know, are another story," Alito said,
in a rare public lecture on Constitutional history and law presented by the New
York Historical Society on Saturday. "Some of them are written by people
who are not very knowledgeable."
Alito
took particular issue with a New Republic column critical
of the cloistered culture of the Court.
"I
was reading one, actually, reading one this morning that was complaining about
the current membership of the Court, because unlike in past days, according to
this columnist, we don't have a representation of drunks, philanderers, and a
few, you know, a few other n'er do wells."
The
column - entitled "Yale, Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Harvard,
Harvard, Columbia" - argues "while we have gained diversity of
background, we haven't gained diversity of experience" and was penned
November 13 by Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate and regular Court
watcher for the past 15 years.
"The
current justices are intellectually qualified in ways we have never seen,"
Lithwick wrote.
"Compared
with the political operators, philanderers, and alcoholics of bygone eras, they
are almost completely devoid of bad habits or scandalous secrets. This is, of
course, not a bad thing."
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