> The sum consequence of Obama's first term appointments will be to
> advance qualified nominees through a respectable selection process
> that ultimately tilts the Court a bit more to the Right. Not the end
> of the world, but not what most Obama voters had in mind, either.
I love that. "Not the end of the world." Let's indulge for a moment in some paralysis of analysis. If I'm not mistaken, in this country all our presidents are either Republicans or Democrats. So if all the Republican presidents chose to shift the Court to the Right and all the Democratic presidents chose to shift it to the Left, then over the long run the ideological balance of the Court would be stable.
However, that also implies that whenever a Democratic president chooses *not* to shift the Court to the left then he is actively ratifying his Republican predecessors' earlier moves to shift the Court to the right.
Of course, when Bush appointed Roberts, Alito, et al, The Nation screamed bloody murder. They have no fucking right to complain if they think Obama's choice to ratify that outcome is "not the end of the world."
SA