honest obituaries

probably to only reason to be sad that supreme court chief justice william rehnquist is dead is the fact that a bush appointee will likely be even more destructive to individual rights and civil liberties and the common good.

its a sad day what rhenquist looks appealingly like a moderate.

heres the scoop on The Real Rhenquist from the nation's david corn.

It's not hard to conclude that Rehnquist was on the wrong side of history and then lied about it - especially given actions he took later. In 1964, Rehnquist testified against a proposed ordinance in Phoenix that would ban racial discrimination in public housing. As The Washington Post notes in stories on his death, Rehnquist wrote at the time, "It is, I believe, impossible to justify the sacrifice of even a portion of our historic individual liberty for a purpose such as this."

In other words, people are not truly free if they are not free to discriminate. In his 1971 hearings, Rehnquist repudiated that stance. But did he really mean it?

Twelve years later, he was the only justice to say that Bob Jones University - that hotbed of racial discrimination and religious bigotry - had a legal right to keep African-Americans off its campus.