Some have prior engagements. Others, well, let’s just say that several justices aren’t willing to act as Barack Obama’s scenery after he blatantly lied about one of their major decisions last year.

Remember that? He said they overturned “a century of law” in their Citizens United decision. In fact, they left historical law in tact but overturned part of McCain-Feingold from 2002. Obama, supposedly a well-educated attorney, would have known that. But the truth wasn’t politically beneficial, so he lied.

And ever since, we’ve all wondered whether any of them would return to another State of the Union. Ever again.

So we can take Alito off the guest list. But don’t go all “Justice Alito is still mad as hell over what happened last year, and he’s not going to take it anymore, so he invented an excuse to go up to Baltimore for the night.” No. Negative. Alito had a long-standing teaching engagement in Hawaii.

That leaves eight others. I’d say we can also scratch off Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas from the “YES” list. Scalia told me in an interview at the Federalist Society dinner last fall not to expect him. “It is a juvenile spectacle, and I resent being called upon to give it dignity,” he said. “It’s really not appropriate for the justices to be there.” So that sounds to me like a big N-O. And Thomas doesn’t go for similar reasons.

Now we’re down to six. Moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy seems to like all that pomp and circumstance, but he didn’t appreciate the president’s shot last year (he wrote the campaign finance decision). So will he stay away? And then what about the four liberals: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan? Maybe they’d like to attend, since it will be Kagan’s first chance as a new justice, and she can wear that black robe and look inscrutable.

And this is where it gets really interesting. If Kennedy stays home and the four liberals decide to go, then what does Chief Justice John Roberts do? He so does not *get* why justices go to the State of the Union in the first place, and he’s criticized the event for having degenerated into a “political pep rally.”

Keep that in mind, too. Citizens United wasn’t some far-right decision. Anthony Kennedy is cheered for his moderate stance by individuals on both sides of the aisle. He has delivered the 5th vote for both liberals and conservatives. I’ve agreed and disagreed with him. He’s not a staunch right or left-winger. But he saw the law as infringing on the First Amendment, so he overturned it. And for that he was demonized to his face, on national television.

Via Hot Air.