Thursday, 06/29/06

Walter Dellinger thinks that the Hamdan decision is "simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever." I rather hope he's right. He's responding in part to Slate editor Dahlia Lithwick's concern that the administration will pretend it didn't notice an unfavorable ruling (a concern shared by Robert Reich), and Dellinger's faith in the decision's ability to strip away the pretense of Bush-style "inherent executive power" is surprisingly reassuring.

If you didn't see the link at TPM, Marty Lederman at SCOTUSblog has more interesting analysis. Both he and Dellinger use the term "war crimes" in ways that make me feel like I might eventually get my country back.

Lithwick and Dellinger's annual colloquy at the end of the Supreme Court term, of which the above is the eleventh part, is usually a good read. I've come to associate it with a sense of relief that after a week of bombshells, the court will go away and be quiet for a few months.

update: Dellinger's followup is even better. 03:14PM «

Saturday, 06/17/06

So, Elizabethtown. Kirstin Dunst's southern accent sometimes comes and goes over a single sentence, and Orlando Bloom is no Ewan McGregor, and Bruce McGill was cruelly underused, and that whole final sequence was not indicative of long-term future happiness (as Ebert put it, "All that redeems this exercise in compulsion is the fact that she is right"), but Cameron Crowe on an off day is still worth seeing. I serendipitously learned that Adidas makes a shoe that is highly similar to the outsized orthopedic failure that drives the movie. We agreed that someone must tell the people. 06:03PM «

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