If sexual intercourse, as the poets tell us, began in 1963, it was another decade and a half before the American political system began to take notice.

So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned.

One answer is that the towns elected officials thought that the project served a public purpose and that the various subsidies and favors were worth the price. But they may or may not have thought this.

He's nice enough not to want to be associated with a nasty remark but not nice enough not to make it. Lacking the courage of one's nastiness does not make one nice.

If sexual intercourse, as the poets tell us, began in 1963, it was another decade and a half before the American political system began to take notice.

It wouldn't be fair to say that conservatives cherish property the way liberals cherish equality. But it would be fair to say that the takings clause is the conservatives recipe for judicial activism just as they say liberals have misused the equal protection clause.

A gaffe is a politician inadvertently telling an inconvenient truth.