The abrupt, single sentence retirement of the moderate conservative justice shocks the nation.
She arrived in a crush of publicity, her name echoed like a fanfare throughout the media as President Ronald Reagan ensured himself a bit of history in naming Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court.
She departs in a silence, a musical rest that made everyone pause to really think about what had just happened to the song. Justice O’Connor, the first woman to reach the highest court in a nation of laws, becomes the first woman to retire from it.
Certainly she was a moderate conservative, not too far from the mold of the Great Communicator who nominated her to the Supreme bench. But Justice O’Connor had her own mind, like Marie Curie, like Grace Hopper, and did not deign to agree meekly with the safe harbor of conservative wisdom.
She differed on abortion views, most notably, from more conservative judiciaries. And in a time when Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action, on the death penalty, on many cases, ended in a 5-4 count, Justice O’Connor frequently would be that swing vote, that fifth of five.
President George W. Bush certainly didn’t expect the hand-delivered retirement announcement to be from Justice O’Connor. Certainly it would be Chief Justice Rehnquist, aging and battling the ravages of time, finally calling it a night after a long, long day of presiding over the high court.
Your fireworks arrived early, Mr. President. Have a good weekend. Justice O’Connor shall, we should be certain of that.
And the holiday weekend will pass, and the administration will likely find a conservative candidate, a candidate of Hispanic origin too. President Bush will nominate his candidate, and present the Democrats a devastating Catch-22: confirm the nomination without a fight and alienate their power base, or fight the nomination and be seen by the growing Hispanic community in this nation as a party that is not their friend.
Fireworks, indeed. Congratulations, Justice O’Connor, on what you have accomplished on the Supreme Court. The Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
