On Hollywood and the military

As promised during my Academy Award simulblog Sunday evening, here is a commentary piece I scribed on the kudo-fest for The Badger Herald. Truthfully, I covered most of this material on this site, but for those of you not wide-eyed about the prospect of sifting through my 2500 word live analysis (I went back and did a word count – I always knew I was long-winded by blog standards, but this one is ridiculous), my thoughts are perhaps a touch more condensed here.

Also, the Supreme Court ruled on the Solomon Amendment Monday, unanimously upholding the controversial law. Ann Althouse has some thoughts up on her site:

I want to express my deepest thanks to Chief Justice Roberts for gathering the Justices onto one clearly written opinion. There is no blather or hedging in the prose. He has obviously taken great pains to put every sentence in plain English.

The decision is actually being received rather warmly across the board from what I can see – I am still waiting for the various Madison fringe groups to emerge from the woodwork and start decrying the high court over this one.

In Tuesday's Herald, I have a column comparing the court's decision to its recent rejection of certiorari in Hosty v. Carter:

The lesson to be learned from these laudable Supreme Court decisions is that while even the most nonsensical of speech may be welcomed into a First Amendment-guided marketplace of ideas, no government ought to be legally coerced into funding the fiery opposition of its naysayers.