A court after his own image

Presidents come, presidents go. But a president's legacy lives on through his appointments to the federal courts. So far, Mr. Clinton's legacy is a judiciary firmly committed to legalized abortion; by the end of a second term, almost half the entire federal bench could be made up of Clinton appointees. Though some say there is not a dime's worth of difference between the parties, there is a gold-mine gap between President Clinton's stated views and the rulings of his activist judges.

Roughly this time four years ago conservatives frustrated with the listless campaign of George Bush said there were nonetheless some 170 reasons to reelect him. The "170 reasons" were the 170 federal judges the next president was then considered likely to be able to appoint.

This argument sought to remind voters of an important point: that a president can influence the philosophical direction of the federal judiciary through the judges he selects, and that the two political parties are philosophically divided, with the Republicans inclined to judicial conservatism, and the Democrats to judicial liberalism.

Mr. Bush's defeat spelled change for a bench 70 percent of which he and his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, had chosen. Now, four years later, the question is whether the change will be arrested and reversed, with Bob Dole's election, or accelerated, with Bill Clinton's reelection.