AS soon as Justice David Souter announced his intention to retire from the Supreme Court, he was greeted with praise from the left and derision from the right.
When he was nominated for the court by George H. W. Bush in 1990, Judge Souter was sold as a confirmable stealth candidate who would prove to be a reliable conservative; instead, he soon emerged as an unapologetic liberal. The conservative legal movement took from his appointment a simple lesson: “No more Souters.” And George W. Bush applied this lesson with a vengeance in his Supreme Court appointments, rejecting stealth candidates in favor of movement conservatives