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1. The myth that the Supreme Court is ‘apolitical’ has existed for a very long time.

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2. “The Supreme Court is too important to be held hostage by partisan politics.”

   He might want to persuade his friends at the L.A. Times of that:

   Recent history powerfully shows the importance of presidential elections to Supreme Court decision-making. Imagine that Al Gore or John Kerry had been elected president and one of them, rather than George W. Bush, had been able to replace William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor in 2005. The high court likely would not have found . . . a right of individuals to own and possess guns in District of Columbia vs. Heller (2008), or upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in Gonzales vs. Carhart (2007).

   …

   There certainly is the possibility for a vacancy on the Supreme Court during the next presidential term. . .

   . . . if Obama is reelected and has the opportunity to replace, say, Scalia or Kennedy, there would be a liberal majority on the court for the first time since 1969. …

   So why are the candidates ignoring this issue? Their advisors probably have told them that voters don’t care, or at least that it is unlikely to matter to the crucial undecided voters. But this may well be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy because voters won’t care unless the candidates choose to make the composition of the courts an important election issue.

   — http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/30/opinion/la-oe-chemerinsky-scotus-future-20121030

   …

   Obama voted against the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, and he even joined in the effort to filibuster the Alito nomination. In explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama opined that deciding the “truly difficult” cases requires resort to “one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.” In short, “the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.” No clearer prescription for lawless judicial activism is possible.

   Indeed, in setting forth the sort of judges he would appoint, Obama has explicitly declared: “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old–and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.” So much for the judicial virtue of dispassion. So much for a craft of judging that is distinct from politics.

   — http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/15945

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3. … and, just for emphasis:

   Recent history powerfully shows the importance of presidential elections to Supreme Court decision-making. Imagine that Al Gore or John Kerry had been elected president and one of them, rather than George W. Bush, had been able to replace William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor in 2005. The high court likely would not have found a right for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (2010), or a right of individuals to own and possess guns in District of Columbia vs. Heller (2008), or upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in Gonzales vs. Carhart (2007).

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