July 2, 2006  The story arc of the Supreme Court term.  It's the
day for summing up the Supreme Court's just-ended term, the
first with John Roberts as Chief, and Anthony Kennedy in full
possession of the swing vote. Linda Greenhouse does the
presentation for the NYT. I'm impressed by her ability to
perceive a story arc in the train of individual cases: In the
court's most significant nonunanimous cases, Chief Justice
Roberts was in dissent almost as often as he was in the
majority. His goal of inspiring the court to speak softly and
unanimously seemed a distant aspiration as important cases
failed to produce majority opinions and members of the court,
including occasionally the chief justice himself, gave voice to
their frustration and pique with colleagues who did not see
things their way....  The term's early period of unanimity,
during which cases on such contentious subjects as abortion and
federalism were dispatched quickly, with narrowly phrased
opinions, reflected agreement not on the underlying legal