Judicial stylist …

… The Justice as Writer | The Weekly Standard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Scalia's writing could swing in an instant from steely argument to wild lampoon and then combine the two and never lose its ease and gracefulness. Such a style can only be the product of exertions unseen by the reader. It requires unblinking attention and pitiless self-corrections made on the fly. The rest of us got a hint of what was involved in 2003, when William Safire, the language columnist for the New York Times — yes, my little ones, there once was such a person — asked the justice to explain a turn of phrase from a recent opinion.