C-SPAN chairman Brian Lamb asks Chief Justice John Roberts to televise the Obamacare oral arguments.

Though the Court releases audio recordings of oral recording, it has never gone on TV. Should Court accept cameras for this momentous case?

"We believe the public interest is best served by live television coverage of this particular oral argument," Lamb wrote. "It is a case which will affect every American's life, our economy, and will certainly be an issue in the upcoming presidential campaign."

Lamb added that "a five-and-a-half hour argument begs for camera coverage." He said that "interested citizens would be understandably challeged to adequately follow audio-only coverage of an event of this length with all the justices and various counsel participating."

Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the idea of televised Supreme Court proceedings during a recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "For every ten people who sat through our proceedings, gavel to gavel, there would be ten thousand who would see nothing but a 30 second takeout from one of the proceedings" he said, "which I guarantee you would not be representative of what we do." Scalia added that such soundbites would leave viewers with "a misimpression" of Supreme Court operations.

We already have the soundbites! And audio clips are played on radio and TV all the time. And we have text transcripts, from which we select quotes. So what is Scalia talking about? Perhaps it's that more people will pay attention if there is video, but how dare he hold his position of power and argue that his work should be monitored by fewer people? I think the real reason is that the Justices don't want us to see how they look as the sit for hours listening to arguments. They'd look grumpy and drowsy and puffy and wrinkly. They'd have to wear makeup. But even with makeup, they'd be far less camera-ready than t [...]

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