"There's something sick about making entertainment out of real people's legal problems."

So says Justice Scalia, saying why he opposes television cameras at Supreme Court oral arguments.

"We don't want to become entertainment," he said. "I think there's something sick about making entertainment out of real people's legal problems. I don't like it in the lower courts, and I don't particularly like it in the Supreme Court."

Oh, come on. When Court TV shows a murder trial, that might absorb us in an unhealthy way, and wrongly make victims into a spectacle for cheap entertainment, but by the time a case is argued in the Supreme Court, the victims are out of view and the issue has been abstracted. What is left is a high-level debate about ideas and the meaning of texts. The public would be lifted up and educated by hearing the arguments.

UPDATE: I suspect that what Scalia is concerned about is not so much those "real people" with legal problems, but the image of the justices. If we could see them pushing with questions and interrupting decent lawyers, maybe regular people would find them narcissistic, pompous, rude, or just plain strange. They'd be ridiculed. "The Daily Show" would run clips. Some folks like me would watch the uncut show on C-Span, but most would experience the Court in the context of politics and humor. The question is whether that might be good for them.