It is suggested, and not without merit, that the most lasting legacy of a President, aside from matters of war and peace, is that of federal judicial appointments, most particularly those on the Supreme Court.

We know how Democrats use the court to fashion policies that they cannot achieve legislatively.

The court, to them, has been a body to enact and not follow and interpret laws and, most important, the constitution.

In keeping with this they have engaged in the hitman politics of character assassination of Republican appointees. We need only look to the recent histories of Robert Bork and later, Clarence Thomas.

Let us be clear: Republicans have no ideological, much less political agenda to achieve with and through the court. Instead, they merely want a court that follows the constitution.

Democrats, by contrast, see the court, as an extension of themselves, wanting it to march in lock-step with their every whim and fancy. It is a fate that the Founding Fathers feared and in enacting a system of well -delineated checks and balances among Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches they sought to avoid it.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes made clear the meaning of the court’s role when he spoke to a man imploring him to “do justice.” Holmes retorted, “my job, as a judge, is to do law and not justice. Justice is for the legislator.”