In ordinary times, this latest event would be matter of private grief
for the Rehnquist family — and, to be frank, public relief that
Rehnquist’s long and destructive career on the Supreme Court is finally
over. I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead — I’d have been very glad
if Bill Rehnquist had lived a long and happy life as a prosperous pig
farmer or faceless bureaucrat or deep-sea explorer or any other private
citizen minding his own business. But instead he chose a career as a
vicious apparatchik for the most malevolent forces of the American
Establishment. He served them all too well — and for that, he deserves
the dishonor that will cling to his name in history’s cold, appraising
eye.
But his death at this moment — at this possible turning of the tide
away from the manifold crimes and incompetencies of the Bush Regime —
is a genuine disaster for the Republic.
“I’m going down the river,
Down to New Orleans.
They tell me everything is going to be all right:
I don’t know what ‘all right’ even means….”
— “Trying to Get to Heaven”