Word: bork
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...simple last time around. When former President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, liberal and moderate interest groups rallied to block the confirmation, and the Senate promptly nixed his nomination--reasoning that Bork's interpretation of the Constitution was entirely out of sync with the mainstream of American legal thought...
When the Senate rejected Bork, it did so because his constitutional interpretation was so radical that it challenged principles now considered fundamental to modern legal thought. Bork, for instance, had said there was no such thing as a right to privacy, saying that the Court had acted improperly in striking down a law prohibiting the sale of contraceptives in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut...
When the Senate heard this, it determined that principles like the right to privacy should not be challenged and sent Bork packing. In other words, the Senate decided Bork's politics simply went...
Souter, of course, is no Bork. He is evidently much more moderate, endorsing both the right to privacy and the principle of affirmative action to "undo" past injustices...
...Senate is perfectly entitled to turn down a Bork, a Souter, or any other appointee who fails, in its estimation, to sufficiently uphold these political ends--regardless of the appointee's scholarly qualifications. If it came to a standoff between the Senate and the President, the voters would eventually be called upon to break the dead-lock by voting one or the other out of office--the surest guarantee that the Supreme Court will reflect the political values of the citizenry...