Forced retirement, please?

If I thought about it at all, it never used to worry me that Supreme Court Justices were appointed for life.

Antonin Scalia is giving me reason to change my mind and think they should have fixed terms or have mandatory retirement no later than age 75 (Scalia is 76). I mean, this is ludicrous:

In his fervent defense Wednesday of Arizona’s right to crack down on illegal immigration, Justice Antonin Scalia likened immigration enforcement to crackdowns on bank robbers.

“What’s wrong about the states enforcing federal law?” Scalia said during his aggressive questioning of U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. “There is a federal law against robbing federal banks. Can it be made a state crime to rob those banks? I think it is.”

Apples, oranges, kumquats. He’s not senile, he knows exactly what he’s saying. He’s contemptuous of the very Federal government which employs him. More than that, he’s wrong.

“Justice Scalia is funny but his analogy is false,” Angela Kelley, an immigration policy expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, told TPM. “As a justice, he knows that there are things only the federal government can do, things the states can do and some things both can do. In this case only the feds can deport unauthorized immigrants. In the case of bank robbers, either the states or the feds can arrest, prosecute and jail them. I don’t think Justice Scalia is advocating for each of the 50 states to start deportation programs.”

Ms. Kelley, I wouldn’t bet against that.

It’s almost like he’s mailing it in. He knows damned well that the two situations aren’t analogous, but he doesn’t care. He throws out these verbal bombs for the fun of it.