Rehnquist

One of the reasons people get passionate about their Presidential candidate (or passionately oppose the other guy) is the possibility that the next president may appoint one or more justices to the Supreme Court. Not that this is always a sure way of furthering a political party's ambitions. Supreme Court Justices tend to make decisions based on their own sense of jurisprudence, without much regard for the political whims of the people who appointed them.

It seems that we may not need to wait for the next President to appoint a new justice. This may be something that gets done sometime before the next inauguration - possibly by a lame-duck President. Today it was reported that Chief Justice William Rehnquist is undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer. So it is possible that we will see two appointments made in the near future: one for a new Chief Justice, and one for a new Justice to take the spot on the bench left empty by whoever gets promoted.

I don't have any great love for Rehnquist, nor am I particularly afraid of whoever the next nominee for the Supreme Court may be. I guess that what upsets me most about this situation is that I remember when Rehnquist was elevated to the position of Chief Justice in 1986, I thought wow, he's only 62, that's really young, isn't it? Now 18 years have passed, and he's 80 - and that must mean that somewhere along the line I too have become 18 years older. Sheesh. And don't get me started on that young, strapping, energetic, Polish Pope that just got elected a few years back. When did he get so old?

Arrgh. I've gotta get "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler On The Roof out of my head. Maybe we'll try Bob Geldof's "Thinking Voyager 2 Type Things" from The Vegetarians Of Love:

I'm thinkin' about mortality
I'm thinkin' it's a cheap price that we pay for existence...

OK, that's better. Thanks, Mr. Geldof!