"Tribal justice"

Back when Pat Buchanan was using his endowed chair on MSNBC to attack the Bush administration on Iraq, it was tempting to forget that he's super-duper racist.

Jeffrey Rosen can suck it

Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor to Supreme Court. This is of course a great moment for liberals, women, hispanics, and anyone who likes to see The New Republic get embarrassed.

The confirmation hearings should be fun. Get to watch the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee as they come up with as many ways as they can to accuse her of deciding cases based on her womanly feelings.

Update
Scott Lemieux just posted this video of Pamela Karlan, whom he was holding out hope for. I can see why!

Supremes for the win

Adam Serwer, today:
Troy Davis will be executed tonight for a crime he most likely didn't commit. Davis was implicated in the murder of police officer Martin McPhail in Georgia. Since Davis' conviction, 7 out of the 9 witnesses in the case recanted. Two witnesses confessed to fabricating their accounts, three of the four who testified at trial have signed affadavits recanting, and others have implicated the ninth witness, a Sylvester "Red" Coles, as the real gunman.

CNN, just now:
The U.S. Supreme Court granted a last-minute reprieve to a Georgia man fewer than two hours before he was to be executed for the 1989 slaying of an off-duty police officer.

Troy Anthony Davis learned that his execution had been stayed when he saw it on television, he told CNN via telephone in his first interview after the stay was announced.

McCain: Obama pro-child rapist

Or at least: “It’s a peculiar kind of moral evolution that disregards the democratic process, and inures solely to the benefit of child rapists." Of course, he's referring to the decision that Obama also opposed, which he admits and says is to his opponent's credit. But he's not letting that stop him from laying blame at the feet of the kind of justices that Obama could be expected to nominate.

Child rapists, dude. He's probably against delivering hot bottled water to dehydrated babies, too.