The Supreme Court

In the amount of time I have been following the world of American politics, I have noticed a trend which arises at the end of June -- the accusation of the Supreme Court being increasingly influenced by politics. While I understand the essential point the proponents of this accusation are making, I need to take a moment to clarify something. The Supreme Court is political, not in the sense it is swayed by public opinion. Rather, the Court represents the judicial philosophies of the two dominant political parties. Allow me to elaborate. If a Republican President (let's say, President Ronald Reagan) views the world through a certain "lens" or Constitutional philosophy (namely, the Constitution should be taken at face-value), it should be expected for him to appoint to the Supreme Court a justice who shares his point of view. The same principle holds true of a Democratic President (President Barack Obama, for instance). Because the President views the Constitution through a certain judicial philosophy (that being a very generous and broad reading of the Constitution), it should be a natural assumption his appointments reflect his viewpoint. Indeed, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan are an accurate reflection of his judicial philosophy. The reality of our current Supreme Court is nine justices (or eight, rather -- Justice Kennedy could be considered a notable exception)  will fall ideologically in line with the party of their appointment, which should be expected. I understand this is mostley a battle over semantics, but these sort of things bug me. Of course it's political . . . Now as far as aware of public opinion and caving to it, that is a slightly related though different issue. The Judiciary should be entirely focused on the Constitution and the law, not public opinion. Of course this is simply in theory. The Congress and the Executive should spend a lot more time focused on policy as opposed to politics, but the simple truth is they don't. To expect, in reality, the Judiciary to do any differently is absurd. I'm not advocating a "public-driven" court, don't get me wrong. However the reality is our Constitution and our established practice of judicial review has placed enormous power into the hands of nine people who hold their power for a lengthy period of time. Let's face the facts and make sure we elect a President who will put our judicial philosophy in!