I rather expected this, but its still sad to see. Apparently, if Justice O'Conner's seat on the court is not to go to a woman (highly preferred option), then it must at least go to someone who would vote the same way she would have (implication is that no woman would vote differently).[1] This is sad. Can we then only replace Justice Thomas with another black person? Is the Supreme Court unjust because there is no "Hispanic-American" or "Chinese-American" on it? What about black women, are they adequately represented by a white woman? Do you not see how ridiculous this is‽ If we are truly equal, we are truly represented regardless of the ethnicity or gender of the person on the bench.
[1] Yen, Hope. "Roberts Dismissed Idea of Reagan Promoting Justice O'Connor for Political Reasons" The Associated Press via Law.com. 2005-08-22 http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1124442315124&rss=newswire