The Supreme Court decided the Oregon Doctor Assisted Suicide case today. In an interesting twist, the minority seems to be made up completely of justices who also dissented in Raich. Most interesting is Thomas's dissent:

I agree with limiting the applications of the CSA in a manner consistent with the principles of federalism and our constitutional structure. Raich, supra, at ___ (THOMAS, J., dissenting); cf. Whitman, supra, at 486-487 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (noting constitutional concerns with broad delegations of authority to administrative agencies). But that is now water over the dam. The relevance of such considerations was at its zenith in Raich, when we considered whether the CSA could be applied to the intrastate possession of a controlled substance consistent with the limited federal powers enumerated by the Constitution.

So basically Thomas is saying... I tried to do the right thing in an earlier case, I lost, so now I'm taking my ball and bat and I'm going home? I think the Supreme Court made the wrong decision in Raich (in other words I agree with Thomas there), and I think he should have stuck to his guns on this one as well. Thankfully Oregon won the case anyway.

Maybe this was a good thing for Thomas to do then. The case was going to go the direction he ultimately wanted anyway, and so he decided to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the consequences of precedent. This just goes to show that no matter how many Senate hearings you put someone through, you never know how they're going to decide cases.