Short Circuit

Recent polling of American voters found that more than half of us could not name even one member of the Supreme Court, so this news will likely resonate with -- what? -- a quarter of the voters, even among those in the states covered by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

But with the retirement of the chief judge of the 4th Circuit, there are now a third of the 15 seats on that circuit that are vacant -- an opening for President (and former constitutional law professor) Obama to bring some balance to a court that has been historically the most ideologically conservative in the country.