President Reagan is still the ‘Lucky Lindy’ of U.S. politics with his wise choice for the court

. Reagan is still the “Lucky Lindy” of our politics. What could be nicer for a president than to nominate to the Supreme Court a woman backed by Barry Goldwater and attacked by the nuttier elements of the right wing? Reagan gets the best of several worlds. The National Organization for Women praises a former Republican majority leader of the conservative Arizona Legislature. The far, far right makes far right-wingers like Paul Laxalt look “responsible” in their support of Ms. O’Connor. President Reagan, the opponent of feminism, scores a feminist first. Both liberals and conservatives look silly if they oppose this nomination. And, to top it off, Ms. O’Connor is very well qualified. It is almost too good to be true. Some intellectual ideologues in the Reagan camp are disappointed that he did not nominate Robert Bork for the court; but they will probably get their way later, and with less opposition because of this first move. Bork is the principal rival to Justice Rehnquist himself as a right-wing legal scholar . But his appointment will renew embarrassing memories of Watergate. Bork was President Nixon’s solicitor general, and the one man in the Justice Department who stayed around to follow Alexander Haig’s order to fire Archibald Cox as special prosecutor. Some liberals who contributed to the establishment of an Alexander Bickel chair at Yale Law School were upset when Bork became the first to hold it – though Bickel’s views, toward the end of his life, were moving in Bork’s