hey, while i'm plugging other people's writings, check out scott lemieux's article, Scalia and Thomas: Originalist Sinners, about how the two justices who claim that originalism is the only coherent way to interpret the constitution, regularly violate originalism's tenets when it suits their political purposes.
the fraud of originalism has been one of my issues for a while. scalia's position on the eleventh amendment is my favorite example. the one sentence amendment looks pretty straightforward, the intention of the drafters is uncontroversial (it was written to overturn the supreme court's decision in chisholm v. georgia), and yet scalia has always interpreted the amendment to grant states broad immunity from lawsuits that goes far beyond the language, history, or anything resembling the "original intent" of the amendment. as scott demonstrates with the decisions of the recent supreme court term, scalia talks a good originalist talk, but his decisions on key issues are just as results-oriented as the most liberal justices on the court.
