"When in the fall of 2004 Chief Justice William Rehnquist fell ill with thyroid cancer, his condition set off months of conjecture over his potential replacement. Antonin Scalia's name was at the center of the speculation. On the Supreme Court for almost eighteen years, Scalia had become the intellectual leader of legal conservatives. Law students and professors- the like-minded but even many who disagreed with him- devoured his legal opinions. Of the nine sitting justices, he was most often the subject of academic law review articles. He had a celebrity quality that drew standing-room-only crowds to his appearances on college campuses. And he was held up as a model justice by President George W. Bush, who would be the one deciding on a new chief justice if Rehnquist retired. Yet Scalia was also the Court's contrarian. The speculation on Rehnquist's replacement turned on the question: Could a justice whose views of the Constitution harked back two centuries, and who routinely lost the votes of his colleagues become chief justice of the United States? Within the decorous chambers, Scalia was notorious for pushing away other justices at critical points in the decision-making process. In a close case, when he was barely holding on to a majority, he could not resist brash comments that might alienate a key vote. When he was in dissent, he did not go quietly. On critical points of law he declared that his colleagues' opinions "cannot be taken seriously"; were "beyond the absurd"; and should be considered "nothing short of preposterous." In June 2004, a few months before Rehnquist revealed the cancer, the Court ruled that the execution of mentally retarded convicts violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Scalia, in dissent, blasted the majority: "Seldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members.""