Reply #12: Maybe Bush can appoint a conservative AND a moderate now?

[dback]

In a perverse way, this may make things a little more tolerable, and throws the right wing a piece of red meat:

Now Bush will replace Rhenquist's slot with a serious conservative--an equal trade--like Edith or somesuch. Then he'll put Alberto Gonzales in the O'Connor moderate-conservative slot. (Despite Gonzales' bit about the detainees, his overall record is faily middle-of-the-road to conservative, so the odds are against us seeing a lot of hot-button precedents overturned on his instigation.)

This isn't optimal, but it could be much, much worse. We just need to pray that the rest of the court's liberal-to-moderate wing stays healthy and on the bench till we have a Democratic congress and/or White House.