"The Destruction of the Wisconsin Supreme Court," by Lincoln Caplan.

In The New Yorker. I thought you should know.

When addressing a case like the John Doe inquiry, with the election of a controversial governor and now an undeclared Presidential candidate at its core, the Wisconsin Supreme Court should be seen as above the fray, beyond price, and wholly independent. Instead, contrary to the ideal that John Roberts described in [Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar], all of the Wisconsin justices look a lot like politicians, in particular the conservatives, who came to the bench with the support of powerful and aggressive political groups. Those justices� integrity is compromised, as plainly as if they had personally solicited every dollar that helped elect them � and that helped drag the standing of their court so low.

All judges look like politicians, especially the conservatives. And all New Yorker writers who write about judges look like politicians, especially when they write about conservatives.

ADDED: Amusingly, The New Yorker points me to a March 5, 2012 article titled: "The Storm/Did a governor�s anti-union crusade backfire?" The answer, it turned out, was: no.

Hazing Justice Kagan.

In The American Prospect's long article about Justice Kagan, here's how she describes the role of the "Junior Justice" (i.e., the Supreme Court Justice with the least seniority) in the conferences (where only the Justices are present):

"So somebody has to do two things. The first is that somebody has to take notes, so you can then go out and tell people what just happened, and I take notes. That�s the Junior Justice�s job. The other thing is that you have to answer the door when there�s a knock on the door. Literally, if there is a knock on the door and I don�t hear it, there will not be a single other person who will move. They just all stare at me until I figure out, �Oh, I guess somebody knocked on the door.� These two jobs, the note-taking and the door-opening�you can see how they can get in the way of each other, right? You might say, what do people knock on the door for? Why does anybody knock on the door? Knock, knock�I�m not going to name names��Justice X forgot his glasses.� Knock, knock, �Justice Y forgot her coffee.� There I am, hopping up and down. I think that�s a form of hazing, don�t you?"

IN THE COMMENTS: First, some people aren't picking up the good humor in Kagan's storytelling. But more importantly, Michael Arndorfer says: "You blogged this in November. Only also tagging it as bullying." What? This is a new article. Is the new article passing along an old quote of Kagan's? I found the post from last November: "Hazing and hunting on the Supreme Court." It has a very similar, but not exactly similar quote (from People Magazine):

"I take notes as the Junior Justice � and answer the door when there's a knock. Literally, if there's a knock on the door and I don't hear it, there will not be a single other person who will move. They'll all just stare at me. You might ask, Who comes to the door? Well, it's knock, knock, 'Justice X forgot his glasses.' And knock, knock, 'Justice Y forgot her coffee.' There I am hopping up and down. That's a form of hazing, right?"

2 questions: 1. Did The American Prospect lift the quote from People (and change it) or does Kagan keep retelling the story? Answer: The latter, probably. It's a better explanation of all the little differences. 2. Should I be ashamed of myself for not noticing I'd already blogged this or proud of the consistency of my taste in bloggability and method of blogging? Answer: Both!

ADDED: My answer to Question 1 failed to account for the quirks of transcriptions from recorded speech to text. This is a topic about which Janet Malcolm wrote in the important book "The Journalist and the Murderer" (the best book about journalism that I've ever read):
Click for more �