The XX Factor: What women really think.

David Souter—Some Fire Under the Ice

Emily, I suspect that the rumors are true and that most of the serious contenders for David Souter’s seat are women. I was less sure that was necessary last week before the strip search case. Now I think its pretty much imperative.

There are already a lot of appreciations of Justice Souter up this morning, many focusing on the eccentricities of the man himself (he eats an entire apple, seeds and all, and cup of yogurt for lunch every day. He had never heard of Diet Coke before coming to Washington), and many more focused on his unexpected shift from what John Sununu assured President Bush would be a "home run for conservatism” to a liberal stalwart. When Souter was sitting through his confirmation hearings, NOW was distributing leaflets that read, “Stop Souter or women will die.” But as Jeff Toobin reports in his book The Nine, that same Justice Souter was the fulcrum that eventually held the court together in the landmark Casey abortion case in 1992. And also according to Toobin, for a while after Bush v Gore, Souter would just think about the decision and weep.

But Souter has been a lot more than just a massive disappointment to the right. Watching him at oral argument—as recently as Wednesday in the Voting Rights Act case—you just didn’t see the bookish, reclusive man from another century. You saw an incredibly passionate and eloquent spokesman for equality and racial justice, often willing to dominate an argument and wear his heart on his sleeve in ways his colleagues would not. The public has often underestimated Souter because he shuns the spotlight and writes, for the most part, in a pretty bookish, temperate way. We also tend to glide right past him because given any chance to do so, he will run himself down as well. But if you’ve been watching him for the past few years, you know that more often than not the passionate, fiery and even outraged voice from the liberal half of the bench has been Souter’s. If it’s indeed true that he is leaving, the left of the court won’t just be losing a bright light, but some much needed heat as well.