A number of mostly theoretical checks to court power exist. My debate colleagues and I waded through them 45 years ago. Impeachment? Highly unlikely. Constitutional amendment? Too difficult, tedious -- and political. "Pack" the membership? Not even FDR got by with it. Other, lesser alternatives fell quickly by the wayside. All that works, it appears, is the gradual replacement of unsatisfactory justices by the nomination and confirmation of satisfactory ones. Which is where we came in.

 And which explains the rage and incivility that may soon overtake us as the Senate considers George W. Bush's first nominee to the court. Conservatives and liberals alike understand the stakes. The eventual nominee not necessarily will but might take a modest view of the court's qualifications for overhauling the Constitution whenever the mood strikes. Democrats generally support the court's rough jurisprudence on abortion, gay rights, church-state relationships and capital punishment. Saves them the trouble of persuading the people. Permits them just to say, "The court says so ... " Conservatives, by contrast, argue for the people's right to shape their own constitutional arrangements.

 Therefore, it's not, after all, Judicial Nomination Time. It's Election Time. Get ready to hate. Get ready to distort and vituperate and throw around catch phrases like "ideologue" and "hard right." If you enjoyed the last presidential election, you'll just absolutely love and adore the coming Senate and media battle over ... whomever.