More on the Supreme Court

Regular readers know how fucking freaked out I am over how a McCain victory would enable the neocon nutjob wing to pack the court even more tightly with Scalia clones than Baby Doc did already.

So E. J Dionne's July 1 column is a must read for anyone who feels the same way:

If the long conservative era that began with Ronald Reagan's election is over, will the judges appointed during the right's ascendancy be able to block, frustrate and undermine the efforts of a new progressive majority?
Consider this analysis from two influential journalists describing Supreme Court justices as "the last hope of the conservative interests in the United States."
Imagine, they write, that a new liberal approach to the country's problems "had been overwhelmingly approved both in Congress and at the polling booths," so "conservative interests resorted to the courts, starting literally thousands of actions to stay the government's hand." Of the ensuing fight, they say: "The liberal justices themselves called their conservative colleagues arbitrary and madly unwise. But while the liberals warned, the conservatives laughed."
Yes, we may go back to the future. Those words are from a still-compelling 1938 book called "The 168 Days" by legendary Washington journalists Joseph Alsop and Turner Catledge.

Read the whole thing. It's well worth it.