Today POLITICO Arena asks:

Is there anything inappropriate about Justice Scalia’s speaking about the Constitution before Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Caucus, as the New York Times editorial board suggests? Is it time to drop the fiction of a judicial monastery with justices detached from the political process?

My response:

There is nothing inappropriate about Justice Scalia’s speaking today before the congressional Tea Party Caucus — or any other group, for that matter, that is well within the mainstream of American politics. As POLITICO reports, Rep. Bachmann’s event is open to all members of Congress, and several Democrats have said they’ll attend.

The complaint by the editorial board of The New York Times — that “the Tea Party epitomizes the kind of organization no justice should speak to” –reflects nothing more than that corner’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of the Tea Party, notwithstanding last November’s elections. When the board goes on to condemn the Tea Party’s “well-known and extreme point of view about the Constitution,” it might better direct its wrath at James Madison. After all, as the principal author of the Constitution, he’s the Framer who promised in Federalist 45 that the powers of the new government would be “few and defined” — the “extreme” view the Times editorialists regularly condemn.

In deciding cases, judges and justices need to be detached from politics, of course: They belong to the “non-political branch.” But that hardly precludes them from talking about the Constitution in political contexts. If anything, it is the Congress that needs to be more attentive to the Constitution its members take an oath to uphold. That, in fact, is the root of our problem today. And we have the Tea Party to thank for noticing it.