Sandra Day O’Connor announced this morning that she’s retiring from the Supreme Court. I am now filled with dread anticipation for what the tone of the rest of this summer will likely be.

In a perfect world, President Bush would nominate a replacement that everyone save the most extreme could be happy with, and this would all be taken care of within a week or two. However, I have a hunch that he’s going to nominate a hardcore right-winger, possibly a Christian evangelical and almost certainly someone opposed to abortion rights. As is his privelege, of course, on the grounds that he’s acting according to his principles. But don’t forget that members of the minority party will also be acting according to their principles when they oppose said nomination. I don’t think you have to be a card-reader to predict the resulting battles are going to be ugly. Thermonuclear ugly.

I am so tired of the state of affairs in this country, tired of every freaking thing being a showdown between the forces of Good and Evil, whichever side you may personally define as the “good” one. I dream of a time when civility returns to our public discourse, when compromise is again possible, and when the side in power doesn’t try to paint their opponents as traitors merely for having a different point-of-view. Maybe such a time will never come again; maybe it never existed before. But it seems to me that these things have gotten almost ridiculously rancorous in the last fifteen years, and I believe the sense of constant, high-stakes struggle in our politics is a cancer on America. I wish someone could find a cure for it.

Incidentally, there is a difference between “opposition” and “obstruction.” Keep that in mind as the rhetorical slings and arrows begin to fly…