Junto Boys

MUSINGS ON THE SUPREME COURT

I wouldn't go celebrating the cultural restoration just yet. Let's do the math.

Replacing Rehnquist with Roberts is net neutral. That merely sustains three reliable votes for judicial restraint.

Even replacing O'Connor with a justice of a desirable stripe, assuming Bush is able to do that, nets four reliable votes, or a minority, with Kennedy remaining a swing vote.

Only by replacing Rehnquist AND O'Connor AND one of Kennedy, Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens or Breyer with a friendly vote gains a reliable majority. Can Bush do that, go 3 for 3? That is why the MSM is working so hard to erode Bush's political capital, trumpeting his low poll numbers and eroding support and so forth - so the liberal establishment can claim Bush lacks the public support, or mandate, or majority, or will of the people, to get his way on the Supreme Court. The battle is over the current and future Supreme Court vacancies. All else is secondary. All the nipping and sniping is posturing for the Supreme Court battle.

The jury is still out on whether Specter is friend or foe. That is an interesting side story.

Bush, as is his fashion, said after the election, "I have a mandate" and then shut up. I expect him to quietly attempt to go 3 for 3, and with a timely resignation or two on the bench, maybe hit for the cycle. He has been quietly stocking the federal bench with judicial conservatives for years.

Of course, in the grander scheme of things, none of this really matters. My job is to raise my little family the way I think best, regardless of external circumstances. There will always be plenty to rail about no matter who's in charge or who wears the robes.