Is That Legal?

I like how she phrased her resignation letter . Her retirement is "effective upon the nomination and confirmation of my successor." If she'd just resigned, as I think they usually do, then President Bush could have made a recess appointment to fill her seat for the next year and a half. (It's happened before.) With the talk of a Bolton recess appointment, I think that was on her mind.

Let's be evenhanded with the criticism of partisanism here. Bush doesn't even have a short list and the left is already painting the replacement, sight unseen, as a super-conservative nutjob.

My reaction is a bit different: many people who have in the past talked about O'Connor as a conservative have every incentive to refer to her as something else. If O'Connor were a conservative, the nomination of a conservative wouldn't be a change in the status quo. So, there's a need to frame the debate in a more favorable way, which doesn't have much to do with the points you're making.

Don't you think the concept of center is culturally dependent? I think, in 2005, Sandra is a centrist.

While understanding the past is a key to not makeing the same horrific mistakes humans tend toward, the past can't be the rubric by which we judge the present.

The rigid rules of the Koran and the Bible aren't applicable to this era any more than the liberalism of late 20th century America.

Across the entire history of the Supreme Court going back to 1789, I would suspect this Court's dispositin is pretty liberal. Not sure if the appeal to history would change things, unless one wants to pick an otherwise-arbitrary starting date to fit a conclusion, such as 1960 or so.

I think she's pretty moderate in her votes, and her pragmatist judicial philosophy is certainly moderate in nature.