Here’s a paradox for you: Barack Obama is a liberal. Yet it’s incredibly likely that his upcoming Supreme Court nominee—no matter who it is—will shift the overall balance of the Court further to the right. Why is this?

(Quick primer for those of you who are not super-into Supreme Court minutia: right now there are four conservative justices on the Court [Antonin "The Angry Italian" Scalia, Clarence "Never Speaks" Thomas, Samuel "Not Harriet Miers" Alito, and Chief Justice John "John" Roberts] one conservative-leaning swing vote [Anthony "No Relation" Kennedy], and four liberals [Sonia "Wise Latina" Sotomayor, Ruth "The Jewish One" Bader Ginsburg, Steven "Who?" Breyer," and John Paul "No Nickname Out of Respect for His Just-Announced Retirement" Stevens.)

Justice Stevens, looking like a baller in his pimp bow tie.

The answer starts with the fact that the Supreme Court does not work the way you probably expect it does. From afar, it might seem like the justices hear the case and then do a simple up-or-down vote on which way they think the Court should rule—but this really isn't the case at all. In reality, the Court is full of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing. As an institution, the Supreme Court presents itself as impartial, aloof, and above all the dirty miscellanea of politics, but the truth is that the Court is an inherently political institution.

Even if Obama nominates a justice who would vote exactly the same way as Stevens did on every issue (and that's a big "if"—the front-runner, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, is less liberal than Stevens), future cases wouldn't automatically have the same outcome as they would under the current Court. Stevens is currently the longest-serving justice on the Court, and he's used his time to cultivate personal relationships with many of the other justices, which he often uses to secure their vote.

More importantly, as the oldest justice on the Court, has the power in many cases to decide who gets to write the majority opinion—and justices love to get their egos boosted by writing these opinions. (Chief Justice Roberts holds this power when he is on the side of the majority; it falls to Stevens otherwise.) Stevens has frequently bargained with Kennedy, offering him the opportunity to write the opinion in exchange for joining the liberals' side of the decision.

"WHAT?" You say? "Anthony Kennedy, a justice in our highest court of the land, would make his voting decisions in part based on pure issues of ego? Say it ain't so!" Well, yes. He would. (For a much deeper look into these machinations, and an explanation of why such horse-trading isn't actually a horrible thing, this New Yorker article on Stevens' retirement is a must-read.)

But it'll take years for the new justice, whoever he or she is, to build the kind of personal relationships that Stevens used to great effect. And thus the Court tilts ever rightward.

(If that thought's too depressing, make yourself laugh by reading this insane Wall Street Journal article suggesting that Obama might quit the Presidency and nominate himself[!] to the Supreme Court. Spoiler Alert: He won’t.)

by Max Nussenbaum