Ah-HA!! There is something going on! While we weren't thrilled with the decision itself, the very fact that the Supreme Court finally opted to delay its joining of the "Redmond Justice" cast heralded what we hoped would be a new season of wacky antitrust drama, and it appears that we were right. Faithful viewer Arthur Frame forwarded us a USA Today article which discusses the, er, noteworthy relationship between one of the Supreme Court justices and everyone's favorite monopoly-abuser from Redmond. Oh, sorry... did we say "one of" the justices? We meant William H. Rehnquist, the Chief Justice himself.

Get this: apparently Chief Justice Rehnquist has a son. And apparently that son is a lawyer. And apparently that son who is a lawyer just happens to be "working on cases in which Microsoft is being accused by competitors of illegal conduct." Coincidence? Well, okay, possibly-- since Microsoft squashes competition as routinely as most people enjoy a frosty beverage, the company's antitrust case load probably accounts for something like 60% of all the legal work in the country, so we suppose it's not out of the question. But it is suspicious. What's more, why did Chief Justice Rehnquist decide not to abstain from the vote which sent Microsoft's case back to the appellate court? After all, "federal law says judges should disqualify themselves from cases in which their child is known to have 'an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.'" It's hard to imagine that this case doesn't qualify, but Rehnquist The Elder claims that he "considered at length" whether his son's employment status warranted disqualifying himself from the vote, and decided that there was no conflict of interest. Huh. (By the way, he voted against skipping the appellate court. Surprise, surprise, surprise...)

First Justice Department Director Joel Klein suddenly announced he was stepping down this month (as reported by Reuters), and now this. Why, some overly-suspicious types might begin to get the sneaking suspicion that Microsoft's trying to buy its appeal by spreading around some of those ill-gotten gains. But that would be foolhardy and brazen; surely no entity would be so blatant as to consider such a boneheaded, chutzpah-laden tactic, except for maybe Microso-- oh. Never mind.