The line moved by the administration of George W. Bush — on torture, on civil liberties, even on what constitutes competence for a presidential candidate — has had long-term and perhaps permanent effects on our political landscape. Case in point: that administration’s takeover and dismantling of the finest civil rights law-enforcement organization in the country:…

I haven’t yet read Condoleezza Rice’s memoir about her parents, Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family. But already I’m annoyed. I’ll admit that I’m discomfited by all of the figures from the Bush administration who have managed to emerge unrepentant, their records unexamined by independent prosecutors, some hawking books and all displaying a kind…

It’s been astonishing to read the near-universal agreement among leading legal ethicists and Supreme Court watchers on the view that there is nothing untoward or even problematic about the emergence of Virginia Lamp Thomas — wife of Justice Clarence Thomas — as a Tea Party leader, even after Mrs. Thomas publicly denounced the president of…

Last year, prosecutors in the county of Pottawattamie, Iowa, narrowly avoided a potential ruling by the Supreme Court that would have held them liable for their role in the wrongful conviction of two black teenagers. The two prosecutors in that case, Joseph Hrvol and David Richter, coerced false testimony from a 16-year-old witness, fabricated evidence…

I mentioned to a friend that I was planning to attend this Saturday’s march in Washington, D.C., and she replied, “Oh, the Jon Stewart march?” I said, “No, the march planned months ago by real activists.” She hadn’t heard of it. Lost in the kvetching and hand-wringing about Stephen Colbert’s appearance before a House subcommittee…

A good deal of the fun in reading Jeff Shesol’s masterful work, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court, is contained in the first half of the book, when the author’s description of the American political scene under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early years of the Depression sounds so familiar. From the…

We haven’t wanted to face it. We’ve tried to avoid it. We’ve hoped that last summer’s town halls, the Birthers, the deliberate misinformation about President Barack Obama, the rise of the Tea Party, the refusal of Republican leadership to engage with the president in good faith — we hoped that all of these things represented…

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s book Racism Without Racists is an essential read for anyone trying to understand race in 21st-century America. But even Bonilla-Silva’s thesis — that the American liberal embrace of “colorblindness” ignores the attitudes, policies and practices of institutional and unconscious racism that perpetuate racial inequality — could not have prepared us for what we…

Recent statements challenging the impartiality of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker — the author of last week’s decision striking down California’s anti-gay marriage law — are sadly reminiscent of arguments challenging the impartiality of black judges presiding over civil rights cases 30 years ago. The leader of the conservative Family Research Council gave robust voice…

It’s perhaps a short walk from trashing the legacy of Thurgood Marshall during the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings to the Republican leadership’s latest affront to the civil rights history of this country. But the push to open hearings on the 14th Amendment, in order to challenge the birthright-citizenship provisions of the landmark Civil War amendment,…