Not to be mean here (redundant for “conservative” anyway), but I do agree with Derbyshire on the ethics of this will-he-or-won’t he dance.

Arlen Specter said over the weekend:

“Being engaged in a bout with cancer myself, I know that it’s good to get up every morning and have something that you have to do, something that is important to do,” he said.

It seems to me this is an odd–and wrong–way to look at the job of Supreme Court chief justice. There are many important things one can do in life outside of being chief justice of the Supreme Court, etc. If a man is so sick (and at his age) that he doesn’t know from day to day if he’ll be up to work (I don’t know that this is the case, just saying), then it would seem Rehnquist would owe America a resignation, doesn’t it?