Legal Commentary

?Justice Alito Overshadows Obama on the Day After the President?s Address?

By Eugene Volokh

A very interesting point by Prof. Ann Althouse (thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer):

Isn?t it fascinating that the lengthy, amplified, magnified speech of the most powerful man in the world with his big captive audience ? in the magnificent room and in smaller rooms all over the country ? are outweighed by one man?s headshake and silent mouthing of 2 or 3 words?

Althouse points to the top items on memeorandum as evidence for that.

Of course, there are many explanations for it. Some might say, for instance, that it?s a sign of the degradation of modern media outlets, which unduly focus on unimportant personal conflicts and underplay major ideas. But it might also be a sign of the relative lack of enthusiasm that the ideas in the actual address have produced, coupled with a sign of the relative waning of the media enthusiasm for the man who gave the address.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on January 28, 2010 (boomark / email).