Scalia: City Slickers More Vulgar Than Country Folks

In the majority opinion issued in the FCC v. Fox “broadcast indecency” case, which upheld the FCC ban on one-time utterances of certain expletives, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote:

We doubt, to begin with, that small-town broadcasters run a heightened risk of liability for indecent utterances. In programming that they originate, their down-home local guests probably employ vulgarity less than big-city folks; and small-town stations generally cannot afford or cannot attract foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood.

Back in 2006, Scalia himself employed vulgarity in an exchange with the news media in Boston.

Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet had asked the justice after mass how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.

Smith said… “The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, Vaffanculo,’ punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin.”

The Italian phrase, according to the Herald, means “(expletive) you.”

By: Joel