Lithwick writes: "Stevens is as shocked by the fiction that the VFW might tear down the white cross as Scalia is shocked by the fiction that the cross is not a religious symbol."

Erm, no. Scalia is shocked by the apparently novel suggestion that some might not regard the cross as universal -- as if the cross was not fundamentally and pervasively a Christian symbol. (Here the ALCU's Eliasberg should have retorted, "Does it signify anything else?") It would seem that, for the good Justice, the phrase "Jews for Jesus" presents no troubling conceptual, theological, or historical tensions.

And all this raises the larger question: Is there a jurist in America more oblivious than Scalia to his own subjectivity? The man couldn't approximate an objective thought if his life depended on it -- very scary for a Supreme Court justice who believes the Constitution should be understood by "objectively" divining the framers' intent.