Yep, Clarence Thomas will stop giving America the silent treatment, and go on Rush Limbaugh Monday. Even Bush flak Dana Perino is condemning Limbaugh for calling serving soldiers "phonies", so why is a sitting Supreme Bush Court "Justice" rushing to support Limbaugh in his hour of need?

Cass Sunstein does some conservative framing on the Bush Court in WaPo today:

The most intriguing development on the Supreme Court this term has been the emergence of a powerful alliance between two different kinds of conservatives: the visionaries and the minimalists.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the visionaries, are not merely predictable in their votes; their sweeping opinions call for fundamental changes in constitutional law. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the minimalists, have also turned out to be predictable in their votes. But their opinions tend to be cautious, narrow and unambitious. They are reluctant to reject the court's own precedents, and attempt to rule in a way that preserves them.

In every one of the term's key cases, including today's momentous decision on school-desegregation plans, the minimalists and the visionaries have agreed on the outcome -- but they have frequently divided on the reasoning.

Er, I've got minor editorial suggestion for Professor Sunstein, and that's that he use change "visionaries" to another word: