Souter retires

Obama gets a Supreme Court vacancy very early, with David Souter, George H.W. Bush's first Supreme Court appointee, calling it quits today. My guess is that he probably would have liked to retire before now, but held out until he knew a President was ensconced in the Oval Office who would replace him with another activist justice.

Of all of the Supreme Court picks of the last 30 years, Souter was the most deftly stealthy; I could be more unkind and say "sneaky" instead. Souter managed to convey to Bush 41 a completely opposite impression of the kind of justice he would turn out to be, especially on the Roe v. Wade issue. ABC legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg has written the most readable book I know of on the Supreme Court and it tells this whole story in detail. (It is called Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.)

The only regrettable aspect of Souter's departure at this juncture is that Obama is likely to tap a much younger person in his place who will serve for several decades.

But, the ideological make-up of the Court will not change.