Faith, Beer, and Other Things That Interest Geoff

Of course, it was often hard to say what her decision was, period. In lieu of clear rules, or what we used to call "law," O'Connor preferred conjuring up five-part balancing tests that settled nothing. That woman could never make up her mind!

In a quarter-century on the highest court in the land, O'Connor will have left no discernible mark on the law, other than littering the U.S. Reports with a lot of long-winded versions of the legal proposition: "It depends."

Some say her worst opinion was Grutter v. Bollinger, which introduced a constitutional rule with a "DO NOT USE AFTER XXXX DATE." After delivering a four-part test for when universities are allowed to discriminate on the basis of race (a culturally biased test if ever there was one), O'Connor incomprehensibly added: "The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today."

So now constitutional rules come with expiration dates, bringing to mind the image of O'Connor proffering one of her written opinions to Justice Scalia and asking, "Does this smell bad to you?" Strangely enough, she failed to specify which month and day in the year 2028 that affirmative action would no longer be justifiable under the Constitution.