Many years ago, I was in the Boy Scout organization the Order of the Arrow with Michael McConnell, the renowned legal mind and on George W Bush’s short list for the SCOTUS. We were both teenagers at the time. He was secretary of our lodge, and we had quarterly meetings. It was his duty to read the minutes of the last meeting, and they were remarkably detailed and fluent. And, of course, the paper he was reading them from was blank.
These legal minds can be amazing.
To hear Alito’s comparison of judgment calls and an umpire’s calls in tricky situations is also a classic. I hope he does that often but he probably doesn’t. I heard him at the New-York Historical Society.