It’s so fucking irritating the way conservatives, once ejected from running things, speak their minds and–surprise–reveal themselves to have had sensible opinions on controversial issues all along.  Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist thinks Obamacare is vital?  Naturally–he’s a cardiologist (and co-owns a hospital chain).  Nancy Reagan supports stem cell research?  Duh–her husband died of Alzheimer’s.  Dick Cheney believes in marriage equality?  Well, his daughter’s a dyke and his wife wrote an Old West lesbian bodice-ripper, and maybe he’s retained some vestige of his Wyoming libertarianism.  Etc, etc.

And now Sandra Day O’Connor, only a swing vote by virtue of being to the left of Antonin Scalia, has opined on corporate ownership of the political system.  She’s against it.  I guess that’s not surprising, considering what a moderate Goldwaterite she always was and practically every Republican holding or aspiring to a federal office is completely fucking insane.

Truth be told, I’m with Glenn Greenwald on the soundness of the ruling.  The First Amendment’s free speech guarantees are negotiable only in the narrowest of situations, and in any case, it’s pretty hard to see how our political culture could become all that much more corporatist.  However, perhaps the possible annihilation of an independent judiciary merits some analysis.

The other weird thing about this Times bit is how O’Connor’s words are labeled “mild criticism.”  Considering that three of the five justices who comprised the majority of Citizens United were former colleagues, the taciturn lives ex-justices typically lead, and the generally august nature of the Supreme Court, this is about as unhinged as a former justice ever gets.  I don’t expect David Souter to bitch and moan to the media when a ruling he doesn’t like comes along.  And what about this remark:

“Gosh,” she said of last week’s campaign finance bombshell, “I step away for a couple of years and there’s no telling what’s going to happen.”

That’s just not “mild.”  She’s basically questioning the Court itself.  Normally the media sensationalize everything, but when it comes to the most pompous areas of US political life, they love to puff up the clubby decorum, toning down an exceptional and bilious public statement with a banal headline.  I can’t help but read in this article a sort of “Oops, Sandra, you forgot to couch your objections properly, so we’ll do it for you.”  (And I’m sure that a media corporation manipulating criticism about corporate speech is pure coincidence).  Above all other concerns, the atmosphere of bullshit collegiality must be preserved–not to do so would be conduct unbecoming of a Very Important Figure.