Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court and Justice Kennedy.
I hope the following doesn't sound morbid or in poor taste but I've always thought this country was asking for trouble by appointing Supreme Court Justices for life, thereby allowing the decision of when to bring in New Blood to hang on something as capricious as the health of old people. It seems to work out to something like one new justice every presidential term but one of these days, it won't. Someday, fate will work its wicked way and three or four justices will die or retire within a short span, thereby allowing one president — and maybe not even a popular one but someone who's on his or her way out — to utterly reshape the court for a long, long time with many appointments.
The party that doesn't control the White House at that moment will scream foul and say that in the interest of fairness and judicial balance, the president should appoint some candidates from their party…but he or she won't. His or her party will be drunk with power and feel that fairness demands they set the agenda for the next several decades. How do you think Republicans would feel if Obama suddenly had the power to replace Scalia, Thomas and Roberts? Or how Democrats would have felt if Bush could have replaced three from their side? And yet we leave it wide open for this to happen…