As we go to press, we don't know the name of President Bush's Supreme Court nominee or nominees. But it is clear that he will eventually get two, and maybe more -- enough to lead a radical transformation of constitutional law. The challenge is to keep this point at the center of the debate and to avoid diverting attention with personal attacks or strategic maneuvering.

The president has repeatedly promised us justices like Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia, and I propose to take him at his word. If we simply take the trouble to read their opinions, it becomes evident that a Court dominated by Thomases and Scalias would launch a constitutional revolution on a scale unknown since the New Deal.

To the Editor:

This letter is in response to two articles [September 29, & October 6, 2004] that Bruce Ackerman published on The American Prospect Online. He argued that the oath given to the judges who will handle the appeals, if any, from the war-crimes tribunals [the military calls them "military commissions"] is illegal because it does not mention the Constitution. One of the articles was subtitled "Forget the Constitution," and Professor Ackerman wrote that the oath that was administered is "the capstone of a ramshackle edifice."