In self-defense, let me say that while this article is ten years old this month, it is IMHO at least as relevant as when it was published.
Culture is far more powerful than politics. Political victories are fleeting unless preceded or follow by cultural changes that reinforce them.
It seems pretty obvious that the less ten years have only seen an acceleration of the trends discussed by Professor Gelernter.
Apologies for the typos in the previous post.
I'm reading a book called Supreme Conflict right now and the author deals with the same subject as your article, why are we getting these decisions when most of the justices are appointed by Republicans.
The author makes several points.
1. With the mistakes made, Republicans have figured out their mistakes in appointing justices. The justice needs to have a clear idea of their philosophy and experience on federal cases. O'Connor and Souter did not have that experience, that is part of the problem with their decisions.
2. Some justices are willing to bend to get along [let's be nice]. O'Connor is one, Kennedy is one. Rehnquist was sometimes like that to accomplish his management duties.
3. Some cannot stand up to criticism. Those who complain the loudest will get their vote, or determine which way they vote. Kennedy can't stand criticism and will appease his critics. He has no backbone. O'Connor would go in whatever direction somebody was nice to her. Brennan was harsh with her so she would vote with conservatives, away from Brennan. Then Scalia or Thomas would criticize her and she would vote with liberals because they were nicer to her.
4. Thomas and Scalia are going to do what they believe is right regardless of the criticism. Thomas figured people criticized him so harshly during his confirmation that he didn't owe them anything. So he follows his conscience. He has been able to persuade Scalia in some cases to be more conservative in judgments than he would have been.
5. The way the Presidents did the appointments had a strong influence. They have had to change things because of strong partisan opposition. GHWBush was not prepared and came up with some bad appointments because not enough vetting was done. GWBush spent a lot more time vetting nominations and did a better job [with the exception of Miers]. He wanted to appoint a woman so badly the vetting was not adequate.
6. Frist was new on the job and unprepared, didn't know how to handle the opposition during confirmations. The Democrats walked all over him. Some good judges who might have been appointed were filibustered by Democrats, and they were not able to be appointed when an opening came up. [i.e. Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens]
7. The justices influence each other after they start working on the court. This is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and often influences critical decisions. For instance, some of the liberals encouraged Thomas to do what he thought was right [a good thing]. O'Connor did flipflops on a couple of abortion cases, Casey for one where her decision was more conservative than later when she went with the liberals on partial birth abortion. The fact that she was a woman strongly influenced her decisions and she influenced some of the other justices on abortion cases.
#3 is the scariest of all of these things, that O'Connor wanted people to be nice to her so badly that it influenced her vote very strongly.
Roberts and Alito were both nominated with these considerations in mind. Miers didn't make it because she didn't have federal case experience and she didn't do a lot of litigation. She was more a manager than a litigator, and she couldn't answer senators' questions.
Supreme Conflict is a good book to read if you want ideas on how to improve the situation.
I've thought for years that the takeover of higher education by the Left was the most important (and disastrous) event in post-Revolutionary American history. Unfortunately, many conservatives have responded by becoming anti-intellectual, conceding the opinion-making machinery to the Left. I agree with you strongly that culture is more powerful than politics, and that trying to reimpose conservative politics without supporting its cultural base is futile. Yet FR seems to have many who are actively hostile to Judeo-Christian culture and abuse its defenders with language derived straight from the Left. I think this phenomenon is just another reflection of the influence of the intellectual Left on public discourse.