After more than a decade of stability, the Supreme Court was overdue for a makeover. Impatient conservatives, long plotting a high-court coup to match their lower-court triumphs, had their eyes on poor old liberal Justice John Paul Stevens. Then, last July, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced she was stepping down. He does have His ways.

O'Connor, the swing justice on a closely divided court, had been a bee in the Federalist Society bonnet for some time, siding with the liberals on issues from affirmative action to public religious displays. With her out of the way and the more conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy taking over as “the decider,” you could just about hear alarm bells sound on the left and church bells ring out on the right.