Judge O’Connor – Skilled in the High Art of Not Giving Offense

CAUTIOUS

For a historical figure, Judge Sandra O’Connor is an unpretentious sort. She has bright hazel eyes, brown-gray hair, a metallic western voice. While the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ransacked their minds for adjectives sufficient to the occasion of nominally at least passing judgment on the first woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court, she sat with her ankles neatly crossed, gravely heeding each speaker with composed attention. She is an achieving woman without an edge. She is good-looking without being alienatingly beautiful and bright without being alarmingly intellectual. Like the man who chose her, Ronald Reagan, she knows the high art of not giving unnecessary offense. Whenever she could, she discoursed on the importance of the separation of powers and the relationship of the states to the federal government, two safe subjects about which she plainly hoped the committee would feel she has the deepest convictions. She must have convinced even the most dubious conservatives that she is conservative by nature if not in judicial philosophy, of which she disclosed nothing during what one senator ceremoniously called her “ordeal.” The flavor of the proceedings is better conveyed by the fact that two senators during the flowery morning suggested to her that in view of her record and the breathtaking breadth of her support- it goes from Goldwater to Kennedy, from pussycats to militant feminists-that the White House is not beyond her grasp. Almost two hours