I've seen some freepers on this thread complain "Reagan gave us Justice Kennedy". Technically true, but Kennedy was Reagan's 3rd choice, and he had to deal with a RAT controlled Senate that was determined to destroy anyone to the right of Nelson Rockefeller. Liberals stuck to their guns in 1986 and its clearly paid off for them big time 30 years later.
If anything, I'd say Reagan made a much bigger mistake in 1981 with Sandra Day O'Connor. Republicans controlled the Senate at the time, he was determined to have "a woman" on the court, and insisted on Renquist's old law school buddy. Several conservatives at the time expressed concerns about O'Connor, but Reagan didn't listen.
And George W. Bush's appointments were comparatively much worse -- he had a GOP controlled Senate and his FIRST choices were John Roberts and Harriet Miers. We only got Alito because conservative activists refused Miers and twisted his arm to appoint someone reliable.
Had Bork or Douglas Ginsburg been confirmed, it is possible that Kennedy would have ended up on the Court anyhow—when Brennan retired and Bush 41 ended up picking Souter (who retired young and was replaced by Sotomayor). Had that occurred, Kennedy still would be around, but would be the fourth vote for liberals (or 6th vote for conservatives), and Robers would be the 5th vote. That would mean no Obamacare (Kennedy voted to strike it down, and it likely would have been struck down 6-3 since Roberts wouldn’t have wasted his time on his “tax” rewriting) just to have it struck down 5-4 instead of 6-3), and both laws limiting marriage to one man and one woman and laws prohibiting abortion would have beeb upheld. Thanks, Arlen Specter.
BTW, remember that lawsuit brought by the Arizona GOP Legislature to declare unconstitutional the state’s redistricting commission that had not been created by the legislature? I was very bullish on the legislature’s chance of success at SCOTUS, but sadly I now must predict that Ruth Bader Ginsburg will write the Opinion of the Court in that case, and that it will declare that when Art. I, Sec. 4, cl. 1 of the U.S. Constitution says that the “times, places and manner of holding elections for ... Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof” the word “legislature” means “the legislature plus any commission created by the voters via referendum against the wishes of the legislature.” Because, you know, the word “legislature” is “vague.”
The reason why I’m almost certain that Ginsburg will write the opinion is because she has not written any opinions from the February sitting, and the only other Justice not to have authored a majority opinion from that sitting (Kennedy) almost certainly had been assigned the opinion in Kerry v. Din but couldn’t get the other 4 to sign on to his opinion (which is why the case had a fractured majority, with Scalia writing for 3 Justices and Kennedy writing for 2 and concurring in the judgment). This really sucks; I was hoping for a big victory for conservatives in the AZ case that could lead to future victories getting rid of FL’s retarded “fair districts” constitutional amendment.