Justice Scalia may not have realized that a duck-hunting trip with his old friend Dick Cheney would end in his becoming the prey.

* Justice Scalia may not have realized that a duck-hunting trip with his old friend Dick Cheney would end in his becoming the prey. But ever since then the justice has been ducking bullets, with critics saying that he should recuse himself from a pending case involving Cheney's energy task force. He has now explained his reasons for not doing so. The vice president is being sued in his official, not personal, capacity. It would be "intolerable," writes Scalia, to "give elements of the press a veto over participation of any justices who had social contacts with, or were even known to be friends of, a named official." No such standard has ever been imposed. He notes that it would have been easy for him to "silence the criticism" by "getting off the case," but writes that he could not do so "in good conscience." Traditionally, it is up to justices to decide whether to recuse themselves from a case. If Scalia's judgment that he can be impartial in this case cannot be trusted, he should not be on the Supreme Court in the first place. Which, for the critics, may be the point.