By some estimates, this is a 70-30 center-right nation. How, then, is a far-left liberal nominee considered mainstream and a moderate-to-conservative one not mainstream?

Wouldn’t it be nice (as the Beach Boys sang in a completely different context) if once, just once, a liberal Democrat president nominated to the Supreme Court someone he believed reflected his views of the Constitution only to see that justice swing to the right after he was confirmed?

That hasn’t happened since John F. Kennedy named Byron “Whizzer” White to the court and White cast one of two dissenting votes in the infamous Roe v. Wade abortion case in 1973. Every judge named by a Democratic president since then has been reliably liberal.

Republican presidents have had less success in naming reliably conservative jurists to the court. Dwight Eisenhower would come to regard Earl Warren as the biggest mistake he ever made. Gerald Ford, a moderate Republican, nominated now-retiring John Paul Stevens, who held a liberal view of constitutional language. The sainted (for conservatives) Ronald Reagan gave the country Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. O’Connor was the swing vote on cases that might have rolled back Roe, which came to stand for abortion on demand, but she declined to do so. Same with Kennedy, who became more concerned with precedent rather than a case wrongly decided.

George H.W. Bush nominated David Souter after being assured by his chief of staff and Souter’s fellow New Hampshireman, John Sununu, that he was reliably conservative. Souter turned out to be as liberal on many important issues as Justice Stevens.

READ MORE: http://online.worldmag.com/2010/04/13/the-next-injustice/