JUSTICE GINSBURG FINDS OUT HOW THE RIGHT FEELS WHEN THE LEFT IGNORES THE CONSTITUTION:

High Court's Conservatives Skeptical of Election Law (Robert Barnes, 9/10/09, Washington Post)

The Obama administration's solicitor general, Elena Kagan, arguing her first case before the court, seemed willing to sacrifice the case at hand to keep the court from making a broad constitutional finding that would hamper government efforts to restrict corporate spending in elections.

Under tough questioning from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. about whether the government was admitting that it should lose the case about the film, Kagan said no. But she added: "If you are asking me, Mr. Chief Justice, as to whether the government has a preference as to the way in which it loses, if it has to lose, the answer is yes." [...]

The court's liberal members defended the restrictions and said it is reasonable for Congress to differentiate between an individual's role in the political process and a corporation's.

"A corporation, after all, is not endowed by its creator with inalienable rights," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.

Not that inventing rights out of whole cloth is any better when the Right does it, but we're long past the point where the Court's decisions are principled.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 10, 2009 8:07 AM