Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's jurisprudence, all too often, has been neither based on the Constitution as understood by its ratifiers nor mindful of the requirements of the rule of law.(The Week)(Brief Article)

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's jurisprudence, all too often, has been neither based on the Constitution as understood by its ratifiers nor mindful of the requirements of the rule of law. She has been applauded, especially by liberals, for her lack of rigid principles. President Bush was urged to pick a "consensus" nominee like her. We think that whether a justice is a faithful servant of the law is more important than whether his nomination draws universal praise in the Senate and on the op-ed pages. But as it happens, O'Connor's career is a study in the breakdown of consensus. Her pragmatism made it easy for her to find compromises, and thus to offer something for everyone. No party ever knew that it had definitively won or lost. Liberals and conservatives; supporters and opponents of abortion; friends and foes of school prayer; activists for and against racial preferences; nationalists and federalists: All had a chance of winning her vote for their cause in the next case, less because she ...