Recognizing this, Congress in 1974 amended the recusal rules to require judges to disqualify themselves in situations that create intolerable appearances of impropriety. It is harder still to say this sort of thing about yourself. Thus, each challenged justice must decide whether he or she thinks an objective person could reasonably challenge their impartiality. And in most cases, when the justices are asked to judge themselves, they answer no. For example, after explaining that neither he nor his son had anything to gain financially from the government's Microsoft case, Rehnquist found no other basis for a reasonable person to think recusal was warranted.
Reasonable minds can differ about how various justices have applied the test in various instances.
The problem is that whether a justice is right or wrong, ultimately he is by definition right. Once a justice decides that he or she is fit to hear a case, there is no process for challenging that conclusion and it becomes the law - thus calling to mind Justice Jackson's famous aphorism that a decision from the court is final not because it is somehow infallible, but rather is infallible because it is final. Some critics may be troubled by the law of recusal for no other reason than that it suggests judges believe that the public trusts them to maintain their oath and duty in situations where it would not trust mere lawyers. Judges have frequently disqualified lawyers to avoid any appearance of impropriety, no matter how remote, in cases with far less in the way of family entanglements. Entire firms have been barred from handling cases if one of their partners previously worked on a case on the other side - no matter whether an ethical wall has been established.