Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who was Chief Justice for the last 18 years of his 33 year career on the High Court died at his home in Virginia on Saturday night.

Justice Rehnquist had been battling thyroid cancer which although quite beatable for a young person is often fatal for the elderly.

That this is a huge loss for the Court and the country goes without saying.

The political implications of this situation, having two Supreme Court vacancies simultaneously, will whip radicals (environmental, racial, sexual, economic) and collectivists of all sorts into a frenzy of paranoia which will make the Roberts process so far look positively tame. It might even make what happened to Robert Bork look civilized.

[Ironically, the last time there were two vacancies at the same time were in 1971, and Justice Rehnquist was one of the Judges appointed (by President Nixon) to fill one of those vacancies.]

In order to prevent such a fiasco (which the Democrats probably want as fund-raising motivation), President Bush should refuse to nominate someone to fill the Chief Justice position until Judge Roberts is confirmed.

The other reason to have some hope that the process will not become a national embarrassment is that Justice Rehnquist was such a conservative Judge. Even more than with Justice O'Connor, this means that Bush's likely very conservative choice to fill the Rehnquist vacancy will have little effect on the net balance on the court. If it were Justice Stevens or Ginsburg who were being replaced, the fight would probably be substantially more brutal than replacing Justice Rehnquist will be.

Yet, I do not see much chance of Senators Feinstein, Kennedy, Leahy and the other members of the left wing of the Democratic party behaving any way other than reprehensibly through this process. In fact, the Democrats will probably become even more aggressive against Judge Roberts for this same reason...they know that another conservative nomination is coming down the pike.

Supporters of the President have tried to remind the public of Republican support for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg despite their substantial disagreement with her positions and her refusal to answer many questions before the Senate.

But don't expect this properly Constitutional behavior to be followed by the Democrats. Their funding for future elections (and make no mistake, this is the most important consideration in a politican's life) is dependent on pandering to America's most left-wing activists.

(I am not saying that Republicans don't make similar calculations, yet time after time Republican behavior seems at least slightly more based in a principled view of limited government whereas Democratic behavior is as cynical as one could imagine of American politicians.)

While we mourn the passing of one of the great jurists in the history of our country, we should be strapping ourselves in for an intense political roller-coaster ride as we move through the unusual process of filling two Supreme Court vacancies.

[This article also posted at Blogger News Network.]