“[T]he more time we spend thinking about this sensible, pragmatic jurist, the better. Perhaps it will convince President George W. Bush that he can best serve the country, and his own party, by nominating a new justice with the same values.”

According to today’s article on United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in the International Herald Tribune, in order to look to the future, the United States — and its president — would be well advised to take a close look at what they’ll be replacing. O’Connor’s decision to retire has come as no great surprise to the nation during this presidential term; the anticipated replacement of judges on the Supreme Court by the incoming president was one of the issues on the forefront of the 2004 election. This is no time to give in to knee-jerk reactions provoked by the omnipresent percolations between political parties. Perhaps the replacement choices aren’t obvious. As the article points out, O’Connor’s own nomination in 1981 was not.

True, O’Connor has the dubious fame of being the “first woman justice in American history.” Her role as a tiebreaker was more consistent throughout her career than her judgments on women’s issues. She is known for her “skepticism about doctrinal and ideological absolutes, and her concern about the effect of her decisions on real people.”

As Adam Liptak writes in his article for the same paper, O’Connor was not the obvious choice at the time she was nominated by President Ronald Reagan, who fulfilled a campaign promise to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court. Twenty-four years ago, there were few women at the time with the necessary credentials while now the number is significantly higher: in 1981, 48 of 700 active federal judges were women; today there are 201 women and 622 men.

Current speculation holds that Bush will aim to please the conservatives or the growing Hispanic population. As to whether he will replace O’Connor with another woman, according to a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor, political scientist Linda Fowler of Dartmouth College believes that “ideology…trumps gender.” In other words, the political climate of the moment seems to hold political beliefs as a factor of higher significance than the current gender of potential nominees.

Are they right? As reporters Linda Feldmann and Warren Richey write, “[if Bush] replaces O’Connor with a man, the high court goes back to eight men and one woman, hardly a balance that looks like America.” They also quote the venerable Justice O’Connor at the beginning of their article:

“Wise old men and wise old women usually decide cases the same way.”