Ricci

Fantastic, must read analysis by the indispensible Glenn Greenwald of the Supreme Court's decision in the Ricci case. You've got to read the whole thing, but the gist is:

1. given that multiple judges on the state and appeals court levels, as well as a four-justice Supreme Court minority, sided with Judge Sotomayor, it's impossible to claim that this decision proves she is somehow out of the judicial mainstream (not that that will keep RW partisans from doing so, and the MSM from parroting their claims);
2. there are no activist judges like conservative activist judges, who consistently promote their own political preferences in their judicial decisions regardless of fact or precedent; and
3. the SCOTUS' decision overlooks the real legacy of racial discrimination, a nearly all-white (and not merit-based) firefighting department.

Regarding point 2 above, here's a potent quote:

Here we have the conservative wing of the Court declaring illegal the employment decisions of local government officials, who used a political approach -- diversity -- which conservatives dislike on policy grounds. So often, the outcomes of the allegedly neutral conservative judges are completely consistent with (and aggressively advance) the political preferences of conservatives (Bush v. Gore being only the most obvious example). Indeed, few things are rarer than conservatives Justices invalidating policies that conservatives like politically, or upholding policies they despise -- the true test for whether one applies to law independently of political and outcome preferences.

It has seemed clear to me all along that a test that cannot be passed by African Americans is ipso facto a flawed test, and that it is the Court of Appeals and not the Supreme Court which has the law right in this case. It's a testimony to how corrupted our judicial conversation has become by conservative partisanship and propaganda that this poorly decided case will be a cudgel with which to beat the highly qualified and much needed Judge Sotomayor.