It is a measure of the stature and the significance of Justice Antonin Scalia that, upon the news of his death at a hunting lodge in Texas, Washington was instantly caught up in an unseemly quarrel over who would succeed him.

But no one can replace Justice Scalia.

He was a giant among jurists. For a third of a century, he led the conservative wing of the high court, creating a new school of judicial thought called "originalism."

But originalism is not conservatism, which, in the judicial era that preceded Scalia, often meant court decisions that "conserved" the radical social revolution Earl Warren's court had imposed upon us.

Scalia believed in going back to the founding documents of the republic and discerning from them the original meaning and intent of the framers.

He would look at the purpose of the authors of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and post-Civil War amendments, and conclude that it was an absurdity to discover there, or read into them, a constitutional right to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex.

The words Scalia used to ridicule such nonsense did as much to discredit majority opinions as did his dissenting votes.

I remember being called into the office of White House Chief of Staff Don Regan, 30 years ago, to be informed that the judge whom Ronald Reagan would name to replace William Rehnquist, who had been named Chief Justice, would be U.S. Appellate Court Judge Antonin Scalia.

Regan was grinning at me as he made the announcement, and I let out of a whoop of victory. Since Nixon days, some of us had argued for naming an Italian Catholic to the high court. Yet, all six of Nixon's nominees and the only nominee of Gerald Ford were WASPs.

Scalia's death removes the court's most brilliant mind and most colorful member. Personable, witty, acerbic, a fine writer, he used his opinions, mostly dissents, not only to make his case but to skewer the majority opinion.

And while Sen. Mitch McConnell may be faulted for not waiting a decent interval after Scalia's death to declare that the Senate will not confirm any Obama nominee to succeed Scalia, the majority leader's position is exactly the right one for the party.