Until recently, I’d assumed that Charles Lane, who purports to be a staff writer for the Washington Post, was considered a news reporter rather than an op-ed columist. Not anymore. Here are a few choice gems from his editorial/news item from a “new” column I read so you don’t have to:

The Rehnquist Legacy: 33 Years Turning Back the Court

OK, that was the headline, which technically wasn’t his but gives you a good sense of where his “news” item is going. The rest is from the column itself:

Though Rehnquist and his fellow conservative justices often acted in the name of judicial restraint, it is perhaps more accurate to say that they showed an active court could serve conservative policy ends as well as liberal ones.

Translation: so one court makes up some pseudo-constitutional excuse for striking down laws it doesn’t like, while another strikes down laws that actually violate the Constitution. Potato, potahto.

During Rehnquist’s tenure, the Supreme Court has arguably expanded its role in American life, frequently striking down laws passed by Congress, subjecting the president to independent-counsel investigations and private lawsuits and, in the 2000 case of Bush v. Gore, settling a presidential election.

You know it’s bad when your “news” guy repeats partisan talking points so strained that even Paul Krugman (‘hat tip: Patterico) admits they’re not true.

Alone among the justices, Rehnquist said in 1983 that Bob Jones University could not be denied tax-exempt status because of alleged racial discrimination.

That wasn’t liberal bias, that was just plain lame. No one, including Bob Jones himself, denies that Bob Jones University practiced racial discrimination in 1983. Why, then, the “alleged?!”

The same majority [Justices Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, O'Connor and Kennedy] voted in 2002 to permit a school tuition-voucher program in Cleveland that funneled taxpayer dollars to parochial schools.

Translated: that same majority voted in 2002 to permit a school tuition-voucher program in Cleveland that allowed parents to send their children to any participating school of their choice – while four liberals stewed over the fact that too many parents were making the “wrong” choice and sending their kids to parochial schools.

To be fair, the article does raise a number of interesting facts about Chief Justice Rehnquist’s history and his probable legacy. It’s too bad all this not-so-disguised editorializing had to get thrown there, as well.