Great article that explains why some of us on DU warn about cases "designed" to go the Supreme Court. Keep this one in mind as the Supremes decide Snyder v. Westboro.
Tip o' the hat to DUer CDT for posting the link in another thread.
It's dark and silent. Reporters trickle into the grand ceremonial room from a door on the left; like everyone, they've been instructed that no recording devices of any sort are allowed. A clutch of spectators, some of whom have been waiting for hours, enters at the rear. At 10 a.m. on the dot, never earlier and never later, the marshal utters her incantation: "The honorable, the chief justice and the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States." Then they file, from behind the velvet curtain, wearing long black robes; they sit behind a tall dais, sipping water from silver cups. Silent footmen glide back and forth bearing thick books. For the justices, it's a typical oral argument day, but if you didn't know better, you'd think you were watching the initiation into Harry Potter's school for wizards, Hogwarts; or, better yet, the Penn and Teller show at the MGM Grand in Vegas. Magic, mystery, and hush everywhere you look.
The metaphor is more than apt. There's another, newer, layer of illusion at work at the highest court of the land. Under the stewardship of its boyish chief justice, John Roberts, the court has taken the law for a sharp turn to the ideological right, while at the same time masterfully concealing it. Virtually every empirical study confirms this rightward turn. Yet recent public opinion polls indicate Americans continue to see a bench that is, if anything, a wee bit too liberal.
How to explain the justices shoving the law rightward, while everyone thinks it is dead center or too far left? The answer is that Roberts is a brilliant magician. He and his four fellow conservative justices have worked some classic illusionist tricks to distract us from seeing the truth. Roberts is likely the first chief justice to understand that the message matters as much as the outcome. He has played his role with consummate skill, allowing the law to shape-shift before our very eyes, even as he and his fellow conservatives claim that nothing is happening.
(more)
http://www.slate.com/id/2269715
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