The irony is that the [U.S. Supreme] Court’s ideology is playing a dwindling role in the lives of Americans.
The familiar hot-button controversies — abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, police powers and so on — have been around so long, sifted and resifted so many times, that they now arrive at the court in highly specific cases affecting few, if any, real people. And it’s not clear that [Chief Justice John] Roberts wants to alter that trend. His speeches on the judicial role suggest a man more interested in the steady retreat of the court from public policy than in a right-wing revolution.
Unless the Roberts court umpires another disputed presidential election (a la Bush v. Gore in 2000 — a long shot, to say the least), the left-right division will matter mainly in the realm of theories and rhetoric, dear to the hearts of law professors and political activists but remote from day-to-day existence. What once was salient is now mostly symbolic.
David Von Drehle, Time
Watching the global financial system writhe these days is like watching Iraq from afar. There’s no doubt about the pain, but it’s difficult to discern exactly what’s happening, or even if conditions are improving or worsening. About the only certainty is that many more people now claim that the mess was “inevitable” than were actually preparing for it.
David Wessel, Wall Street Journal
Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue announced the arrival of “America’s silver tsunami,” as retired teacher Kathleen Casey-Kirschling — the country’s first official Baby Boomer, born on Jan. 1, 1946, seconds after midnight — filed for Social Security, for which she will be eligible when she turns 62. While Astrue said he was upbeat about Social Security’s future, his choice of the word “tsunami” was chilling if accurate. Boomsday — the day Baby Boomers can begin cashing their Social Security checks — is nigh.
San Francisco Chronicle
President George W. Bush is trumpeting the good news of a shrinking deficit and telling anyone who will listen that his tax cuts fueled the economic growth that made it possible. Don’t believe the hype. Despite Bush’s giddy spin, the federal government’s finances are in sad shape. . . . After a long binge, Bush is trying to reinvent himself as a responsible steward of taxpayers’ money. Too bad he isn’t.
Newsday
