Word: opinionizing
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...That may sound sweeping, but it's hard to know exactly what to make of the 5 to 4 decision, with the majority opinion also written, as in the Bong Hits case, by Chief Justice John Roberts. It seems to put a significant chink in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, and advocates for limiting campaign spending say it will draw a flood of corporate cash to TV spots pushing one candidate or another. But the decision is also very narrow, meaning it may well preserve the overall impact of McCain-Feingold and doesn't necessarily justify predictions...
...Meanwhile, in another concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, sides with Roberts, but they fret about anyone construing his opinion too broadly. It's all right, they say, for schools to crack down on speech about drugs, because drugs can be a real threat to student safety. But in their view, that's about as extreme a restriction as the First Amendment allows. Roberts' opinion "provides no support," they say, "for any restriction of speech that can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue...
...problem, says Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in dissent, is that the Roberts opinion not only provides support for such a restriction, it invents "out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs." Stevens is fine with a rule that prohibits students from promoting illegal drugs. But no matter what the principal argued in this case, the bong-hits banner conveyed "nonsense," speech "that was never meant to persuade anyone to do anything...
...know whether the court took these factors into account in the Bong Hits opinion, but Roberts makes the point clearly enough. "School principals have a difficult job, and a vitally important one," he writes. "When Frederick suddenly and unexpectedly unfurled his banner, Morse (the principal) had to decide to act - or not to act - on the spot." She acted, of course, and for the good of the schools and students, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing...
...with Washington. In fact, when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently uttered the closest thing he's said to an apology on the issue, it was addressed to President George W. Bush at an April summit in Washington, rather than directly to the victims. Tokyo's obsession with Washington's opinion is generally only equalled by its obliviousness towards Japan's reputation in the rest of Asia. But with neighbors such as China and South Korea flexing their growing muscles, however, that attitude may become unsustainable...