Well, it weakened Reagan in the sense that we ended up with Anthony Kennedy on the SC vs the two prior nominees who would have been more conservative (was it Carswell and Bork?). So given that outcome, the SC has definitely been weakened by Anthony Kennedy professing his admiration for using foreign law and his votes in passing liberal activist rulings.
I believe that either of his two prior nominees would have been constitutional advocates vs swing vote moderate-liberal Anthony Kennedy! Another win for the left-wing and loss for the conservatives.
I agree. The other failed nominee was Ginsburg, he confessed to smoking pot in college, or something like that.
Kennedy had a lot of history with both Reagan and Ed Meese. Everyone expected him to be a reliable conservative vote. Unfortunately he has drifted left through the years. At the moment he is still the third or fourth most conservative member of the court. As we like to say in Sacramento, at least he's not Souter.