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By AndrewHyman Posted in SCOTUS — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Brian Dickerson has a good column in the Detroit Free Press, and here's how it begins:

Poor William Rehnquist! In the twilight of a Supreme Court career that has spanned seven presidencies, the chief justice ought to evoke admiration and sympathy as he battles thyroid cancer.

Instead, it seems the nation he has served faithfully for 33 years can't wait to be rid of him.

It's not that we're rooting against Rehnquist's recovery, exactly. We just wish he'd continue it somewhere else so we could get on with the fun of beating each other senseless over the choice of his successor.

You'd think conservatives would be more respectful of a justice who has borne their torch faithfully for more than three decades. But among the myriad advocacy groups poised to spring at the first whisper of Rehnquist's retirement, conservatives may be the most impatient of all.

Chief Justice Rehnquist continues to do an excellent job. Not that I agree with him on everything, of course (and not that his retirement would be a bad thing). Rehnquist most recently provided a decisive vote in the Texas Ten Commandments case, Van Orden v. Perry. He also wrote the plurality opinion in that case. Here's an excerpt:

Our cases, Januslike, point in two directions in applying the Establishment Clause. One face looks toward the strong role played by religion and religious traditions throughout our Nation's history.…The other face looks toward the principle that governmental intervention in religious matters can itself endanger religious freedom. This case, like all Establishment Clause challenges, presents us with the difficulty of respecting both faces. Our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being, yet these institutions must not press religious observances upon their citizens. One face looks to the past in acknowledgment of our Nation's heritage, while the other looks to the present in demanding a separation between church and state. Reconciling these two faces requires that we neither abdicate our responsibility to maintain a division between church and state nor evince a hostility to religion by disabling the government from in some ways recognizing our religious heritage....

Justice Breyer concurred that "a hostility toward religion ... has no place in our Establishment Clause traditions." HT: How Appealing for the Dickerson column.