Rehnquist: Focused Warrior or Over the Hill?

When I read that Chief Justice Rehnquist, who is battling thyroid cancer, was hospitalized yesterday for a fever, and saw this AP photo of him leaving his home for work the day before, I started wondering if the Founding Fathers got it right when they decided that Supreme Court appointments be "for life." Do we really want the most important judicial decisions in the land fielded, in part, by a man who, when asked recently when he's going to retire, retorted with a playground taunt: "That's for me to know and you to find out." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Churchill in World War II  But then I listened to another chapter in John Ramsden's Winston Churchill: Man of the Century. The book, from the Modern Scholar audio series, comprises fourteen lectures by Ramsden, who is Director of Graduate Studies and professor of history at London's Queen Mary College. The chapter tells how Churchill journeyed to Russia to meet Joseph Stalin, who was too paranoid to agree to meet anywhere else. It was an an extraordinary undertaking for anyone in the midst of World War II, with the flight, in unpressurized, barebones aircraft, taking nearly two weeks. It was even more extraordinary for a chubby, cigar-smoking, sedentary man in his 70s!

Franklin in the Revolutionary War  And then I thought how Churchill and Stalin later went on to meet Roosevelt -- literally on his last legs -- at Yalta. And these weren't the only old and infirm leaders in history who could be relied upon to make world-shaping decisions. I've just finished listening to Stacy Shiff's A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. Troubled with gout and a gallstone that made travel excrutiatingly painful, Franklin, in his late 70s and early 80s, succeeded in getting the money and troops needed to win the Revolutionary War, then proceeded to nail down treaties with Britain and France, before returning home "to retire," only to be elected to two terms as Governor of Massachusetts.

Will Justice be Served?  So is Chief Justice Renhquist demonstrating poor judgment by failing to announce his retirement, or is he a focused warrior, in the mold of Churchill and Franklin, who will serve us well to the end? Should there be a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court Justices? How about a paper-and-pencil test of memory, judgment and intelligence? Or do we just leave it up to them as the Constitution mandates?