>Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph Ellis criticized Scalia's Heller decision as political agenda disguised as originalist principles: "If Heller

>Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph Ellis criticized Scalia's Heller decision as political agenda disguised as originalist principles: "If Heller reads like a prolonged exercise in legalistic legerdemain, ... that is because Scalia's preordained outcome forced him to perform three challenging tasks: to show that the words of the Second Amendment do not mean what they say; to ignore the historical conditions his originalist doctrine purportedly required him to emphasize; and to obscure the radical implications of rejecting completely the accumulated wisdom of his predecessors on the court."