Supreme Beings
News of Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement from the Supreme Court is being received as significant on the level of the first shots at Lexington and Concord 230 years ago, and prefatory to a conflict of roughly equal ferocity and importance.

While I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop--my theory for awhile has been that two Supremes would hang up their robes at once, giving the White House great flexibility and Democrats great agita--and I'm certain that we'll be banging on this topic all summer and quite possibly beyond, one thought at the outset. In addition to all the substantive bewilderment and disgust progressives feel about the Bush administration and their Congressional helpmeets, they have a process tendency that both reinforces those bad concrete results and is arguably as bad or worse on its own: every decision is subservient to politics. Every single one.

This is bad enough when the specific issue at hand is, say, trade policy, or whether or not the federal government will support potentially life-saving stem cell research. But it's far worse when the policy implications of the decision will endure, and harm, long beyond when Bush goes back to his made-for-TV ranch, Cheney is cryogenically frozen, and Rumsfeld has his persona transferred into the body of a genetically enhanced wolf, the better to enjoy the hunt. Such is the case with the Supreme Court. Whoever ascends to the high bench is likely to get there with the imprimateur of Radical Cleric James Dobson and other "Christians" of the Dominionist stripe, interested above all else in advancing their vicious and divisive social agenda and punishing all those who disagree, as well as that of the rabidly anti-government Federalist Society, which desires above all to unmake the New Deal and move the country down a path we might fairly call neo-feudalism. The extent to which Bush shares either worldview can be questioned, but the next time he goes against the wishes of these two factions on an appointment of such tremendous importance will be the first.

Senate Democrats are already saying the expected things about a willingness to fight and their hopes--which they must know are entirely unrealistic--that Bush will consult with them on his choice. But this too goes against everything we've ever seen from this president and his political team: they yearn for conflict and thrive on polarization. Add in that this is the moment "the base"--particularly the Dobsonite social reactionaries who won the election for Bush last year--has been waiting for, and there is next to no chance the pick will be anyone to the left of, say, Genghis Khan. Gird yourselves.