There's an interesting article in the Post-Gazette today called Campaign 2004: Election likely to alter make-up of top court. It details how the Supreme Court may change following the presidential election.
I just skimmed through the article itself, but I did read through a chart in the Dead Tree version of the paper that contains a photo and description of each current SCOTUS member. I want to excerpt some specific lines from these, and you can see if you notice the same thing I did:
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist...is often the most influential member of a five-justice conservative majority...Justice John Paul Stevens...[is] considered the leader of the court's more liberal wing...
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor...is considered a moderate conservative...
Justice Antonin Scalia...[is] the court's most vocal conservative...
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy...is a center-right voter on the court and sometimes switches sides in ideologically sensitive cases...
Justice David H. Souter...has become a consistent member of the court's more liberal wing...
Justice Clarence Thomas...is a staunch conservative, and probably the court's most doctrinaire member...
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg...is a member of the court's more liberal wing...
Justice Stephen Breyer...usually votes with his liberal-leaning colleagues...
Did you catch it? Let's review:
Four judges are specifically identified as "conservative." In contrast, three are identified as "members of the court's more liberal wing," and one is identified by his liberal voting record, but not a single judge is actually referred to as "liberal." Only one right-leaning member is identified by his voting record, rather than his ideology.
I guess they're really taking that "'liberal' is an insult" meme to heart, aren't they?
Posted by CD on August 9, 2004 06:40 PM