THE WEEK

When we hear the word “Lugar,” we reach for our culture.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist finally made it through the Senate and media crossfire. Sidney Blumenthal of the Washington Post, who is making it his life work to explain conservatism to the liberal world —that is, to explain it away—saw a portentous shift. “Reagan’s warm persona” has convinced “the common man that conservatism is not the exclusive property of the rich and powerful. Will Rehnquist’s regime of cold Realpolitik remove the benign image?” Scary music, please, molto agitato. Rehnquist’s margin of victory in the Senate—65 to 33—was tight, as these things go, though hardly unprecedented. Half a century ago, Charles Evans Hughes—former associate justice, former governor of New York, former everything—got an equally harsh going-over from Senate “progressives,” as they were then called. Hughes’s principles and character were maligned; he was tarred with the record of a corrupt Administration (Hughes had been Harding’s Secretary of State). Hughes passed, 52 to 26, and went on to lead the resistance to one of the greatest assaults on the Constitution in this century, FDR’s court-packing plan. These days, assaults on the Constitution tend to come from the courts themselves; Chief Justice Rehnquist may render equally significant service. Meanwhile, no one could think of much bad to say about Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, though liberals will have many years—Scalia is fifty—to make up for it. Welcome to them both.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

National Review

When we hear the word “Lugar,” we reach for our culture.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist finally made it through the Senate and media crossfire. Sidney Blumenthal of the Washington Post, who is making it his life work to explain conservatism to the liberal world —that is, to explain it away—saw a portentous shift. “Reagan’s warm persona” has convinced “the common man that conservatism is not the exclusive property of the rich and powerful. Will Rehnquist’s regime of cold Realpolitik remove the benign image?” Scary music, please, molto agitato. Rehnquist’s margin of victory in the Senate—65 to 33—was tight, as these things go, though hardly unprecedented. Half a century ago, Charles Evans Hughes—former associate justice, former governor of New York, former everything—got an equally harsh going-over from Senate “progressives,” as they were then called. Hughes’s principles and character were maligned; he was tarred with the record of a corrupt Administration (Hughes had been Harding’s Secretary of State). Hughes passed, 52 to 26, and went on to lead the resistance to one of the greatest assaults on the Constitution in this century, FDR’s court-packing plan. These days, assaults on the Constitution tend to come from the courts themselves; Chief Justice Rehnquist may render equally significant service. Meanwhile, no one could think of much bad to say about Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, though liberals will have many years—Scalia is fifty—to make up for it. Welcome to them both.