Author Archives: Tin Man

Maine Governor Signs Marriage Bill

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Go Maine! The state’s governor decided to sign the same-sex marriage bill! It goes into effect in September.

Baldacci said in a statement that while he has opposed gay marriage in the past, “I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.”

When empathetic people realize that this is a question of constitutional rights, of equality, they come around.

Maybe this will put pressure on New Hampshire’s governor to sign his state legislature’s bill, too.

Condi Talks with Student

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This video of Condoleezza Rice debating a student at a recent Stanford reception has been floating around for several days now, but I just watched it, and it’s fascinating — how the cocktail chatter dies away and the room becomes silent as attention focuses on Rice, how she becomes arrogantly defensive, how she basically says, “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

Scotusblog on Souter

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Tom Goldstein at ScotusBlog has interesting thoughts on Justice Souter’s retirement and his possible replacements.

David Souter will be the first Supreme Court justice whose career I’ll remember from start to finish. I was too young to know about Sandra Day O’Connor’s appointment; I was 16 when Souter was appointed in the summer of 1990, living at my aunt and uncle’s house in New Jersey on a break from Japan. Souter’s will be one of the shortest terms in recent Supreme Court history, at just 19 years. O’Connor served for more than 24 years; Rehnquist, more than 33; Blackmun, 24; White, 31; Marshall, 24; Brennan, 31. The last justice to serve fewer than 20 years was Lewis Powell, from 1972 to 1987.

So Souter will retire at age 69 and go back to New Hampshire, where he can spend the rest of his life hiking, reading, and eating his daily lunch of a whole apple (including the core) and yogurt, seemingly unchanged by the city where he’s spent the last two decades. I wish him a happy retirement.