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Scalia was also well known for hiring people he thought were wrong on substantial political issues. 'Smart enough to aid him' does not mean or imply 'political judgements were considered sound and trusted by even Scalia's standard.'
This would be a smuggled insinuation, both invalid and dishonest if claimed explicitly. (Which it has not been, hence pressing for further clarification).
Not many. Most people do not hinge their opening posts on a non-characterized source, or happily clarify when asked.
It does happen from time to time, though. Even got an AAQC for a frisking the Seymour Hersh claims that the US blew up the Nordstream pipeline, which was largely based on critiquing the (claimed) source of Hersh. Casting shade on sources is on brand, though in this case I pressed the OP to justify the source he was using to argue by proxy for an argument conclusion the source didn't justify.
Heavens no. Feel free to look for yourself, though.
Scalia was, in fact, semi-famous in the legal world for always hiring at least one "counter clerk" (aka, someone who disagreed with Scalia on significant issues) in part so that he'd have someone smart in the room to play devil's advocate.
Of course, he didn't always pick winners; one such "counter clerk" was Ian Samuel, who later as a professor admitted to perving on his students, was broadly disgraced, but appears to have clawed his way back to respectability as an in-house regulatory counsel for big corps.
Yeah my comment was more along the lines of a neutral point of information. Any excuse to tell the weird story of Ian Samuel (RIP First Mondays; you were a good podcast while you lasted) and plug ALAB, which is wrong about most things but funny.
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Scalia finding his opinion valuable in a specific, highly unusual circumstance does not make his opinion valuable for conservatives generally. Scalia's known method was to use contrary arguments to sharpen his own, not to adopt as his own.
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