Reversing Time's Arrow: Law's Reordering of Chronology, Causality, and History

But this Article urges us to use the President’s unintended comments as a prompt for reconsidering how we ordinarily talk about and conceive time and causality ―especially in thinking about law. Through a series of brief case studies culled from politics, culture, and law, this piece begins mapping the frequency, range, and significance of circumstances in which we can claim that the hands of the present grasp and transform the past...Among other benefits, greater awareness of this underappreciated aspect of American legalism can assist scholars and citizens in shedding new light on enduring and important debates involving such areas as constitutional interpretation and judicial confirmation hearings.