Reagan’s Court Choice: A Deft Maneuver

With his nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor for the Supreme Court vacancy, President Reagan has won admiring applause from rival politicians for a masterly political stroke as well as a strong judicial choice.
This city still recalls that a little over a decade ago President Richard M. Nixon had to face political humiliation when the Senate rejected two of his Court nominees, Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. and G. Harrold Carswell.
Now, Mr. Reagan is being credited with an astute Court selection that immediately won the endorsement of a broad spectrum, from conservatives like Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican of Arizona, to liberals like Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
The President has risked a new breach with the radical right wing of the Republican Party, which has provided his most zealous political support through the years and is now openly dismayed over Mr. Reagan’s Court choice.
Blunts Democrats’ Charge
But in the process, several members of Congress commented, the President has blunted the right-wing stereotype that Democrats were beginning to use against him in the increasingly partisan battle over economic issues.
House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., Democrat of Massachusetts, who has been in a toe-to-toe battle with Mr. Reagan on the budget and taxes, called a truce long enough to hail Judge O’Connor’s nomination as ”the best thing he’s done since he was inaugurated.” Meanwhile, right-wing leaders were accusing the President of betraying the