Years ago, when I was young and full of niavete about our political system, the late Cheif Justice William Rehnquist was one of my favorite public figures.

Was this because of the depth of his legal scholarship? My respect for his tough-but-honest conservative judicial philosophy? Not at all. It was because Justice Rehnquist worse gold stripes on the sleeves of his robes, in homage to the character of the Lord High Chancellor from Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Now it seems the old fellow was not just endearingly eccentric, but often rather dangerously out of his mind:

Via the Washingotn Post

FBI files detail Rehnquist drug addiction

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The late U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist was dependent on a powerful sedative during his first decade on the Supreme Court and became delusional when he stopped taking the drug in 1981, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing newly released FBI files.

The fact that Rehnquist checked into a hospital for a week in late December 1981 to be treated for back pain and dependence on a prescription drug was previously known, the Post said.

The Post reported that the FBI concluded during its 1986 investigation that Rehnquist began taking the drug Placidyl for insomnia after back surgery in 1971 and was, by 1981, taking apparently three times the usual starting dose each night.

Doctors interviewed by the FBI told agents that when Rehnquist stopped taking the drug, he suffered paranoid delusions, including imagining "a CIA plot against him," the newspaper reported.

The FBI files also show that during both of Rehnquist's confirmation battles, the Justice Department asked the FBI to find out what witnesses lined up by Senate Democrats were prepared to say, the newspaper reported.

Then-assistant attorney general John Bolton, who recently stepped down as ambassador to the United Nations, approved enlisting the FBI and wrote that he "would accept responsibility should concerns be raised about the role of the FBI," the newspaper said.

Bolton told The Washington Post that there was no political bias in the investigation, because the request for the FBI to interview witnesses actually came from Senate Democrats.

I guess old Rehnny was alot more out there than his critics gave him credit for. Richard Nixon, however, knew something was up from the moment he met Rehnquist, who was at the time wearing a pink shirt and psychadelic tie, causing Nixon to label him a 'hippie'. Groovy.