The Justice Is Blind, But A President Can See

Bad pun, I know. Sue me.

So the always interesting Dahlia Lithwick has a new post up at Slate riffing on what the presidential election might mean for the Supreme Court. Lithwick has broached this topic before, notably when she was guest-writing on the NY Times Op-Ed page a few months back.

In general, I agree with her basic point: around election time, people always trot out the ages of the older Supreme Court Justices and talk about the next president's ability to "shape the future of the Supreme Court." It hasn't really happened. In two terms, Clinton got to appoint, what, about two justices I think (Breyer and Ginsburg). It seems there is about one appointment per presidential term. All this talk of "four seats on the court" coming up in the next term seems a little over the top.

But Lithwick is also right in her concluding point. Voters should be mindful of their views what kind of justice they'd like to see sitting on the court in the future as they head to the polls in November. Because even if their foreign policy and 90% of their domestic policy looks the same, Bush and Kerry's respective preferences for Supreme Court nominees are wildly divergent.