The country cannot undo the damage inflicted by the Bush administration. But it can contain the damage. The best way to do that is to vote for any candidate that will render Bush a lame duck for the next two years. With reduced authority to further ruin the country or foul up the war in Iraq or mishandle any number of things, a lame duck president has to cater to the wishes of the opposition party at least some of the time.

One way of looking that things is to recall the last time that Republican presidents had to respect the needs and concerns of the opposition Democratic Party. Let's look at this in the context of the U.S. Supreme Court, whose members outlive every presidential administration that appointed them and issue rulings which affect our lives in so many ways.

By 1986, President Reagan had been fumbling along for five years, doing his best to roll back the New Deal policies that had governed this country for decades. Reagan affably had attacked unions, welfare mothers, civil rights and basically everything decent and good that our country had to offer. The conservatives had waited a long time for someone to carry the right wing mantle and when Reagan took the oath of office in 1981 it was time to expend whatever political capital they had amassed.

Books upon books have been written about Reagan over the years but some angles do not get the attention they deserve. Reagan presided over a divided government during both his terms as the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives from 1981 through the rest of the decade and they seized control of the equally powerful U.S. Senate in 1986. One result of Democratic control over these branches of government was that the Reagan administration nearly collapsed in the wake of relevations that the President was violating U.S. law in sending money and other assistance to the right-wing Contra army in Nicaragua, a band of terrorists that tried to bring down the only elected government in Central America. Congress was more concerned about the fact that Reagan was violating U.S. law than the fact that he was actively supporting a terrorist army that raped and killed at will. (The public also discovered that Reagan was sending weapons to Iranian terrorists). This relatively limited congressional concern did have it advantages: through the Iran-Contra scandal, Congress forced Reagan administration officals to testify under oath about this policy and the presidency was weakened as the public soured on the actor-turned-President.

At this time, Reagan appointed Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1987, a conservative-moderate, Lewis Powell, resigned from the Court, creating a vacancy. The Court had been divided on many issues, including abortion, affirmative action and the other hot-button issues on which everyone and his brother has an opinion. With Powell gone and Bork replacing him, the Court would be a very different place. Taking advantage of a weakened Reagan administration reeling from public scrutiny into the Iran-Contra scandal, the U.S. Senate rejected Bork's nomination because he was an inflammatory right-winger who cheerfully advocated a limited vision of constitutional rights, scaring everyone including moderate conservatives who did not want the Court to backtrack from its advances in protecting civil rights. Ask anyone who cares about this issue and they will tell you flatly that a Supreme Court without Robert Bork is like a research team without a plagiarist. Bork's subsequent autobiography and his scholarly books about his cramped constitutional vision only confirm that Congress made the right choice in forcing Reagan to find another nominee.

Here's a flavor of Bork's views which thankfully have not made their way into Court rulings:

Bork . . . advocates a modification to the Constitution which would allow Congressional supermajorities to override Supreme Court decisions.

. . .

In December 2005, Bork wrote an article in the periodical National Review calling for government censorship of popular culture, including television, film and music. Bork claimed that "[l]iberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality".

Read the first statement carefully. A super-majority can override Supreme Court decisions? That means the First Amendment is up for a majority vote. A super-majority can easily trample the rights of dissenters. If the Constitution is supposed to protect the rights of the political and social majority, how can you justify allowing Congress to overrule civil rights decisions this way?

A few years after Bork was rejected, the first President Bush also had to deal with Democrats in Congress when he had to appoint a replacement to the Supreme Court in 1990. The Bork debacle was still fresh in everyone's mind, and no one wanted to defend another ideologue. So Bush did one of the few decent things of his career and appointed the brilliant but little-known David Souter to the Supreme Court, plucking him from his hideaway in New Hampshire. Souter was an unknown quantity but good enough for the Democrats who satisfied themselves that he was not a sheep in Bork's clothing. Souter has gone on to become one of the most liberal members of the Court, and his intelligence makes him indispensable in the current days of a Republican-dominated Supreme Court. He's one of the few Justices that we can count on for expansive civil rights. Today conservatives refer to this appointment derisively, saying there can be "no more Souters."

Supreme Court Justices serve into their 70's and 80's. They get the best health care possible and take care of themselves, allowing them to serve 20-30 years. Having already inflicted significant damage by appointing two right-wingers to the Supreme Court recently, Bush may have the opportunity to appoint yet another before he leaves office. The oldest Justice, John Paul Stevens, was appointed to the Court in 1975 and is 86 years old. He could leave the Court at any time. Although Stevens was appointed by a Republican president, he is one of the most liberal and intelligent people on the Court. His loss would be incalculable if Bush replaces him with a rightist conservative. That will happen if the Republican flunkies in the U.S. Senate remain in control of that branch of government. It won't happen if Democrats take over the Senate and fight Bush in this critical area.

For some reason, the left does not make an issue of Supreme Court and Federal judgship nominations in national elections. Then we wonder why our civil rights are being eroded. Most of our civil rights actually derive from progressive Supreme Court decisions, but it's the Republicans who make the Court an issue, as shown by this link.

The moral of the story is this: if you live in a State where a close Senate race is brewing, get your ass out of the house and vote on Election Day. If you care about abortion rights, freedom of speech, limits on presidential war powers, the right to privacy and other civil rights that we take for granted, get your ass out of the house and vote. And bring a friend with you.