Supremely Bushed

While the current Administration's outrageous policies and incompetent execution have caused Republicans to lose control of Congress and resulted in the president himself losing most of his influence, there is one place where George W. Bush carried out the conservative agenda splendidly and it is the institution that may deliver the most jarring long term impacts while offering the most difficult path to reversal: the Supreme Court.

Bush's appointment of Justice Samuel Alito and Chief John Roberts have resulted in a more conservative court, as witnessed by the slew of recent 5-4 opinions lumping those two with reactionaries Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and simply conservative Anthony Kennedy, who has emerged as the key vote in most cases. In the short term it is Alito, rather than Roberts, who has made all the difference, as he replaced the centrist Sandra Day O'Connor, who sometimes sided with the more progressive foursome of Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens. Alito's staunch right-wing views have bumped Kennedy into the middle spot, a middle more conservative than O'Connor.

But in the long term it is the ages of Roberts, 52, and Alito, 57, that are scary numbers for liberals to consider. Those two will in theory occupy their seats for 20 years or so. Meanwhile, Stevens is 87. Ginsberg is 74, Breyer is 68 and Souter is 67. We liberals worry quite a bit that if Stevens should need to vacate his seat in the next year and a half, Bush would solidify the conservative lock on the high court for a generation. As Jeffrey Toobin writes in the June 25th New Yorker, the composition of the Supreme Court is one of the most important reasons why the Democrats need to win the White House in next year's election.