The postelection stage groaned with a menagerie of personages vying for attention: politicians, judges, lawyers, talking heads. Yet who proved himself--once again--the craftiest, the savviest pol of them all? Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
It began with the unanimous first opinion he coaxed out of a court deeply and obviously divided on the matter of Bush v. Gore. Its beauty was its subtlety. Indeed, it was so subtle that it took three days for the TV mavens to figure it out. At first, they thought the court had merely ducked. In fact, it had issued a veiled but devastating rebuke to...