Alyssa Rosenberg reviews Fred Strebeigh's new book on women's legal history and is struck by the way it puts a certain landmark case in perspective:
The need to prioritize among cases does achieve one important political goal: firmly restoring Roe v. Wade to its place as one case among many. It is somewhat jarring to read a book on women and the law that treats Roe as an explanatory tool for parsing the differences between privacy and equality law rather than as a main case study, but Strebeigh makes a convincing case that Roe should not overshadow the entirety of the canon of law affecting women.
Eileen Applebaum parses Obama's plan to rescue underwater homeowners:
President Obama's plan is a mixed bag. It is a serious effort to help homeowners and not just banks, as was the case under President Bush, but it is still heavily tilted toward lenders. It will make mortgage payments more affordable for some homeowners, at least temporarily, and should slow the current rate of foreclosure. It may also slow the fall in house prices due to a glut of vacant homes in some of the worst-hit neighborhoods. But it will not stop the decline in home prices in many housing markets where homes are still overvalued and will continue to fall.
And Terence Samuel mulls over the Burris fiasco:
The tragedy of Roland is that he cheaply ruined his chance to live out his dream of being in high office -- he ran for governor twice -- and to quietly add some sheen to an otherwise ordinary political career. Ego alone made him one of the few, maybe the only person, who would have accepted an appointment from Blagojevich under the circumstances. Blagojevich decided to play the race card against a Senate leadership who said it would not seat anyone he appointed, and it worked, because he had Burris to play along.
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--The Editors
