The future direction of the Supreme Court is very much at stake in this November’s presidential election. The two or three justices most likely to depart the Court over the next four years -- Justice Stevens, Justice Ginsburg, and possibly Justice Souter -- are liberal judicial activists who routinely read their own policy preferences into the Constitution and who selectively regard their own favored precedents as sacrosanct. If a President Obama or a President Clinton names their successors, the slender operating majority on the Court for liberal activist results on most contentious political issues is likely to be preserved for at least another generation. By contrast, a president committed to nominate, and fight for, justices who will practice judicial restraint offers real hope that the Court may soon be restored to its proper role in our constitutional system. In his speech today, John McCain has provided encouraging evidence that he would be that president. One speech, of course, does not a campaign -- or a Supreme Court appointment -- make. John McCain needs to continue to make the case for judicial restraint and to draw the stark contrast between his views and his Democratic opponent’s on the proper role of the judiciary. If elected, he will need to populate key judge-picking positions -- including the White House counsel and the attorney general -- with experienced advisers committed to his stated goals. (We would rest easier if he threw out a few names now.) And he will need to be ready to devote a lot of political capital to defeat intransigent Democratic opposition in the Senate. Conservatives, for their part, need to do what we can to help McCain live up to his promises.

The mischief began 40 years ago in the case Griswold v. Connecticut, when the Court struck down a prohibition on contraceptives on the basis of a "right to marital privacy." The bit about "marital" was quickly dropped, and the new discovery became a general right to privacy.

In Griswold, the Court suggested the right might be found in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and/or Ninth Amendments. In other words, it must be there somewhere, anywhere. But since the right to privacy is nowhere mentioned, the Court had to contend that it resides in "penumbras formed by emanations." In layman's terms, that means in partial shadows formed by emissions, which it doesn't take a constitutional scholar to conclude sounds pretty vaporous.

If Connecticut's contraceptive law was outdated and purposeless, the answer was simple: for voters to overturn it. Both the dissenters in the case, Justices Hugo Black and Potter Stewart noted that they opposed the Connecticut policy, but that didn't make it unconstitutional.

Typically, disputes like those over the U.S. attorney and terrorist-surveillance program are worked out by compromise. If a president wants to protect his prerogatives, he also wants to preserve a working relationship with Congress. But this particular relationship can’t be saved. Comity is impossible with a Congress bent on doing all it can to destroy what remains of the Bush administration. In the matter of the U.S. attorneys, the administration has provided Congress 8,500 pages of documents and numerous officials and former officials have testified. This isn’t enough for a Congress that won’t stop until it has run-down every outlandish conspiracy theory about the firings that -- even if clumsy and ill-advised -- were perfectly within Bush’s power to make.

And so, the administration was justified in saying both, "no more," and "see you in court." There, it can hope to get a decision that strengthens the executive’s ability to protect its deliberations for a long time to come.

In Crawford v. Washington (2004), the Supreme Court dramatically changed its conception of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. The effects on criminal prosecutions will likely be very significant. Justice Scalia's opinion for seven justices in Crawford narrows the focus of the Confrontation Clause to statements that are considered "testimonial," but as to these the demand of the Clause is unequivocal: The statement cannot be admitted against an accused, no matter how reliable a court might consider it to be, unless the defendant has had an opportunity to examine the maker of the statement.

Prosecutors afraid that witnesses who have made favorable statements may not be available to testify at trial should no longer prepare to argue that the statements are reliable. Instead, they should arrange an early opportunity for the defendant to cross-examine.

For example, what are the consequences with respect to the admissibility of statements made in 911 calls, some of which seem more designed to create evidence than to secure immediate assistance? Should routine laboratory reports made in contemplation of prosecution be inadmissible if the technician does not testify? Shall statements to private persons, made in circumstances suggesting likely transmittal to the authorities, be considered testimonial? In what circumstances should a court find that an accused has forfeited the confrontation right, as by killing or intimidating the witness? The last two questions are particularly significant with respect to children, as are others: Shall some child declarants be considered at too early a stage of development, either cognitively or morally, to be considered witnesses?

According to the National Center for Pay Equity, women’s earnings in 2006 were 76.9 percent of men’s, with the median full-time, year-round female employee earning just $32,515, compared to a median male earning of $42,261. But should we be outraged? No. And here’s why.

Women earn less largely because we have the luxury of decisions that men generally can only dream of. We work less hours in the average work week, we are more likely to take time off to have kids or care for aging parents, and we choose lower paying fields requiring less formal education. Oh, and we’re less far less likely to be killed at work, a little detail often neglected at the NCPE.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men are much more likely to suffer fatal workplace injuries than women. According to 2006 BLS statistics, the most recent year available, 428 American women were killed on the job. Compare this with the 5,275 men who lost their lives. The reason: Men take more dangerous, laborious, and physically demanding jobs, and they are compensated heavily for taking such positions. According to the BLS, the most deadly fields for 2006 were those heavily dominated by men, including logging, mining, waste management, law enforcement, construction, and transportation projects.

Conversely, as the BLS statistics demonstrated, the fields with the lowest death rates, including education and social services, are female-dominated. Ultimately, the average man is more willing than the average woman to spend his days inside dark mines to extract coal.Act like a man and you’ll be compensated as one.