Politics and other nightmares

After Chief Justice John Roberts said, in his speech at the IU school of law, that it's harder for the Supreme Court to reach consensus than it is for Congress, where compromise comes with the job. "In effect," the columnist noted, Roberts implied that "on some decisions a justice is conservative or liberal, and there isn't a lot of middle ground." Then he hunted up the dean of the law school, Gary Roberts, to ask him what makes people liberal or conservative:

Sometimes it's comforting to live in a down-to-earth safe zone where looniness comes so much later than in other places that we have a better chance heading it off.

During his confirmation hearings, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said, naively, that we wanted to build consensus on the court. After his speech at the Indiana University School of Law Wednesday, he was asked about that, in light of the fact that about one-third of the court's rulings last term were decided 5-4:

Roberts responded that justices differing in their interpretations of law cannot act like lawmakers and strike compromises halfway.

I'm a day early with this, but perhaps you'd like to start getting in the supplies to celebrate properly. Tomorrow is Tax Freedom Day, the day we start working for ourselves instead of The Man. This date is one day later than last year's TFD, but more than two weeks earlier than 2007's date. But that's only because the calculation does not include the deficit, even though deficits must eventually be financed, according to the Tax Foundation, which calculates TFD annuall:

If nuclear weapons are outlawed, only outlaws will have nuclear weapons:

Evan Bayh takes a final courageous stand on a tough issue before leaving office:

"My heartfelt congratulations go out to Butler University, Coach Brad Stevens, all the players and the entire Butler family on a historic season and a magical run through the NCAA tournament," said Bayh.

Jane Fonda can't keep her mouth shut or her story straight. In 1988, she went on "20/20" and apologized for posing with the North Vietnamese and their anti-aircraft gun in 1972. She said there were times that her anti-war zeal made her "thoughtless and careless" and she was sorry she hurt our soldiers. It was years too late, but it was something.

Sorry, John, it's a little late in the day for that:

Arizona Sen. John McCain is trying to shake loose the mantle of the maverick brand he shared with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin in 2008.

"I never considered myself a maverick," he told Newsweek. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities."

Our editorial page disagrees with The Indianapolis Star's about the appropriateness of state Attorny General Greg Zoeller's decision to add Indiana to the 13 other states challenging the constitutionality of health care reform.

The Star editorial's headline says the suit is "tainted by politics," but the body of the piece acknowledges that the law's requirement that individuals buy insurance or face a tax penalty "appears to be unprecedented" and is "at the very least worth questioning." So, it's tainted by politics but raises a valid point? How to get out of that dilemma?

There was an interesting segue during the roundtable discussion on ABC's "This Week" yesterday. A discussion of the GOP chairman's image problems specifically and people's disgust with Washington generally was followed immediately by a discussion of the latest sex scandal of the Catholic church.

During the political segment, former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich said this: