Legal analyst Linda Greenhouse is adding her voice to those recently lamenting the extreme polarization of the U.S. Supreme Court (see Gavel Grab).

In a New York Times op-ed, Greenhouse suggests the court’s polarization is more than a reflection of polarized politics in the United States:

“[I]t occurs to me to wonder if the flow might also be running in the other direction. I wonder whether the Supreme Court itself has become an engine of polarization, keeping old culture-war battles alive and forcing to the surface old conflicts that people were managing to live with. Suppose, in other words, that instead of blaming our politics for giving us the court we have, we should place on the court at least some of the blame for our politics.”

Read more here.