Related Content

• Q & A | Gerald Martin: On Gabriel García Márquez
• Q & A | Joe Starita: Chief Standing Bear's journey for justice 130 years ago
• Q & A | Aryeh Rubin: Jewish sages of today
• Q & A | David Wolman: From old English to e-mail
• Q & A | Carolina De Robertis: Tribute to Uruguay
• Q & A | Zeida Cecilia-Mendez: On Fernando Bujones
• Q & A | Norman Podhoretz: Liberalism and Judaism
• Q & A | Peter Golenbock: On George Steinbrenner
• Q & A | Jeff Leen: A heroine of female wrestling
• Q & A | S.L. Price: A tragedy's impact on baseball
• Q & A | Ralph Nader: Describing his vision for America -- and why he uses fiction to explain it
• Q & A | Lars Schoultz: U.S. and the Cuban Revolution
• Q & A | Melvin Van Peebles: Filmmaker writes a graphic novel
• Q & A | Doug Stanton: Drawing lessons from U.S. troops in Afghanistan
• Q & A | Gina Montaner: Women in literary life
• Q & A | John Dufresne: Balancing fiction, autobiography
• Q & A | Benjamin Moser: On Clarice Lispector
• Q & A | Al Gore: The former vice president issues a call to action
• Q & A | Roxanna Elden: Joys, perils of teaching
• Q & A | Sadia Shepard: On memoirs
• Q & A | Meg Cabot: Advice for girls
• Q & A | Ana Menendez: Writing novels
• Q & A | Jaime Bayly: A conservative antibourgeois
• Q & A | Liz Balmaseda: True life inspires fiction
• Q & A | Bob Graham: An owner's manual on government
• Q & A | Stuart E. Weisberg: On Rep. Barney Frank
• Q & A | Francine Prose: On Anne Frank
• Q & A | Joyce Purnick: On Michael Bloomberg
• Q & A | Andrés Neuman: A musical childhood in Argentina
• Q & A | Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés: Marielitos, balseros and other exiles
• Q & A | Lyah Beth LeFlore: African American mothers and daughters
• Q & A | Tracy Kidder: A Burundian student's experience
• Q & A | Sid Jacobson: Lessons from Vlad the Impaler
• Q & A | Jack E. Davis: On Marjory Stoneman Douglas
• Q & A | Dennis Lehane: FIU is fertile ground for literary stylists

Why no evangelical justice?

W hen Republicans were warned not to give Sonia Sotomayor the drubbing Democrats gave Robert Bork and Sam Alito -- lest they be perceived as sexist and racist by women and Hispanics -- the threat was credible, for it underscored a new reality in American politics. The Supreme Court, far from being the last redoubt of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant in America, reflects the collapse of that WASP establishment, and a rising racial, ethnic and gender consciousness and solidarity.

Consider. In 45 years, no Democratic president has put a single white Protestant or Catholic man or woman on the court.

Six nominees have been sent to Congress by Democrats since 1964: Thurgood Marshall, an African-American, four Jewish nominees -- Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- and one wise Latina woman. Not since JFK put Byron ``Whizzer'' White on in 1962 have Democrats elevated a white Christian. What about the Republicans?

Alito objected to Obama's history claim

Still wonder exactly why Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and mouthed the words "not true" during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address? He objected to the president's saying the ruling reversed a century of law.

The president touched off a controversy when he broke with tradition - and decorum, his critics said - by criticizing the court's recent campaign finance decision in his speech with six justices in attendance and bound by their own tradition of not reacting to what is said. (Justice Antonin Scalia once said he no longer goes to the annual speech because the justices "sit there like bumps on a log" in an otherwise highly partisan atmosphere.)

"With all due deference to the separation of powers," Obama said, "the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections."

Conservatives embrace judicial activism in campaign finance ruling

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision holding that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts of money in election campaigns is a stunning example of judicial activism by its five most conservative justices. In striking down a federal statute and explicitly overturning prior decisions, the court has changed the nature of elections in the United States. At the same time, the conservative justices have demonstrated that decades of conservative criticism of judicial activism was nonsense. Conservative justices are happy to be activists when it serves their ideological agenda.

Since Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968, a central feature of Republican and conservative rhetoric has been to attack judicial activism. The phrase is never defined with any precision and has often been used to refer to decisions that conservatives simply don't like. But if judicial activism has any meaning, it surely refers to decisions that overturn laws and overrule precedents. In contrast, judicial restraint occurs

Elections for sale?

If we learned anything this last year, it's that corporations must have government oversight. They are too big to fail, and powerful enough that corporate malfeasance, abetted by a lax government, can bring the global economy to its knees.

Yet the U.S. Supreme Court has reached out to consider an argument to give corporations a free hand to influence electoral politics. A ruling accepting this argument would shake the very foundation of our republic, turning us from a government of ``we the people'' to ``we the corporations.''

In his historic run to the presidency, Barack Obama broke every political fundraising record, raising nearly $750 million from more than a million contributors in 2007 and 2008. Now consider a corporation such as Exxon Mobil. During 2008 alone, Exxon generated profits of $45 billion. With a diversion of even 2 percent of these profits to the political process, Exxon could have far outspent the Obama campaign and fundamentally changed the dynamic of the 2008 election.

High court: Terror suspects can challenge their detention

In another blow to the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay have the constitutional right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

The 5-4 ruling was the high court's third setback for the administration since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

''The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.