Moving and Shaking
June 29th, 2007Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is upset over the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against two school districts in their attempt to diversify their student bodies by way of racial selection. He says, “It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much,” and I agree, to a point, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The sixties were a time of great, sudden change, and so it is to be expected that Courts will overturn precedents and laws when they get the chance. It’s all the better, in my opinion, when they get the case right, as I think they did here.
I will add my own personal opinion that this proves that there is no such thing as “judicial activism.” There’s only “judges whose opinions you disagree with.” The Rehnquist and Roberts Courts are big-time scrappers, movers and shakers. Is that a bad thing? Debateable. But they’re just as “active” as anyone they’ve replaced.
I’ve got a small note on this to make.
At the Democratic debate at Howard University, time for answers was short and host Tavis Smiley had his own way of keeping the candidates’ answers short. When Senator Dodd ran over his allotted time, Smiley noted, “Senator Dodd, I was going to say, were you Paris Hilton you could have an hour, but you’re not, so…”
It’s not funny. At least, I don’t think it is. I think it’s a Freudian confession, and I think it shows how ridiculous the supposed-to-be serious political process has become.