BTW the Bush family makes me ill, but credit where credit is due.
GHWB had chance to flip the court to conservative, but he gave us one flaming liberal and one conservative. Souter was recommended to him by Warren Rudman, a senator from NH at the time.
Souter had worked with Rudman in Rudman's NH DAs office in earlier years and Rudman knew him well. Otherwise he was a mystery. That was a time when candidates were really looked at for how they might rule on abortion. Pro-abortion GHWB took Rudman's advice and appointed the mystery man who later voted to uphold Rowe v. Wade.
There is a story of how Rudman and Joe Biden were high fiving after Souter voted to uphold Rowe.
I think these misses have been intentional by the Bushes.