"What will the Supreme Court look like when neither side has to walk on eggs to win the favor of the one in the middle?"

"It will be a more conservative court, for sure, and maybe a more honest one. Justices may feel more free to say what they really think, and the public will ultimately judge the result by expressing itself in electoral politics."

Writes Linda Greenhouse in the NYT.

I'm going to look closely at 2 phrases — "more honest" and "walk on eggs."

1. Greenhouse writes "more honest," not "more nearly honest," so — assuming she's in control of her writing — she must see honesty as not absolute: the Court can obfuscate and distort and cheat and still be considered honest, but not tremendously honest, such that one can still hope for "more honesty." If you think a Court that obfuscates and distorts and cheats at all is not honest, then you should write "more nearly honest." I assume that most people who follow the Court closely don't think it is possible or even desirable for the Court to be utterly honest, so you're probably stuck with the nonabsolute meaning of "honest," if you're going to use that word at all.

2. "Walk on eggs"? The conventional phrase is "walk on eggshells," and I can't believe Greenhouse means to create a new metaphor so close to the standard phrase. "Walk on eggs" seems very funny to me, because I'm picturing a floor strewn with scrambled eggs, maybe some sunny-side-up fried eggs thrown in there. And it makes me wonder, in the standard phrase, "walk on eggshells," were we supposed to picture whole, uncracked eggs or just the shells from eggs that have been cracked? I think it's the latter — I don't know — which is why "walk on eggs" struck me as silly. I think we're supposed to picture the discarded shells on the floor and a need to walk on them without cracking them. But what's wrong with crunching down on what is trash anyway? Is somebody sleeping nearby whom we're trying not to wake? I'll speculate that's the idea: we're not worried about breaking the shells, but we're catering to the delicate feelings or short temper of some person who'd be disturbed by something as inconsequential as the crack of an eggshell.