As usual, it was way worse than anyone knew

The decision in Bush v. Gore, which stopped the Florida recount and essentially gave the presidency to Bush, came down about 9 months before I took my first law school class. And while most of us thought the fix was in, I reserved judgment in the legal sense because my ability to understand the reasoning behind the opinion was obviously limited. However, after reading the case several times over the course of my law school career, each time with a greater knowledge of the legal leanings of each justice, I became convinced that the conservative majority of the court knew which outcome it wanted and set out only to develop a passable legal argument to justify that end. After reading this article in Vanity Fair, (Part 1. & Part 2. ) there is now no doubt that the cynic in all of us was correct. Again. And as always, it was way worse than any of us thought possible.

So where does this get us? Well, obviously you don't need a legal education to understand that people, no matter who they are, cannot divorce themselves from their partisanship. Let that be a lesson for future Judicial confirmation hearings in the Senate. And confirmations of future CIA directors. And FCC chairmen. And FERC regulators. And...