Two good followups: Stanford Law School professor Marcus Cole, on Volokh, pouring further scorn on Maureen Dowd's "assum[ption] that Clarence Thomas, and all successful African Americans, owe their success to Affirmative Action as the but-for cause of their success," and Michael Kinsley's devastating column slicing through the nonsense in Justice O'Connor's compromise solution. (link via Sullivan)

Charles Krauthammer offers a dissenting view: that as bad and dishonest as the Court's opinion was, it's a good thing that the Court didn't close off democratic debate on the issue as it has on, say, abortion.