I think he's talking about Miers. His comparison is on judge vs. non judge, not CJ Rehnquist vs CJ Roberts or Rehnquist-replacement vs O'Conno-replacement.
Reinquist was the Chief Justice. Roberts replaces him in that regard.
Reinquist was also the judge on the Supreme Court without prior experience as a judge. Miers will replace him in that regard.
Scalia is particular pointing out issues in regard to the advantages of having judges on the Supreme Court who were not judges before. So he is directing his remarks more at Miers than Roberts.
Furthermore, it is Miers that is the controversy this week, not Roberts. Roberts is already seated, without serious controversy, and presumably Scalia is happy with that state of affairs. There is no controversy there for Scalia to address, and almost certainly he has no motivation to be stirring one up over Roberts, either.
No
Miers -- someone who wasn't a judge replacing another who wasn't a judge. Duh!
But as they say, you read into it what you WANT it to say.
Sorry, jdm, but you're wrong. Perhaps you misunderstood the quote you highlighted in your post #5:
"Without mentioning the Bush nominee by name, the conservative legal icon (Scalia) said that the High Court needed someone who had never served as a judge to take the place of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist."
Chief Justice Roberts served on the appeals bench before being tapped for the Supreme Court. Scalia goes on to say the following in the article:
"Scalia concludes: "I don't think that's a good thing. I think the Byron Whites, the Lewis Powells and the Bill Rehnquists have contributed to the court even though they didn't sit on a lower federal court."
Scalia is talking about Miers, who did not serve as a judge on any lower court. (BTW, neither did 31 other justices of the Supreme Court before they were nominated.)