As a Professor, Obama Held Pragmatic Views on Court – New York Times (5/3/09):

In interviews, former colleagues and students say they have a fairly strong sense of the kind of justice he will favor: not a larger-than-life liberal to counter the conservative pyrotechnics of Justice Antonin Scalia, but a careful pragmatist with a limited view of the role of courts.

“His nominee will not create the proverbial shock and awe,” said Charles J. Ogletree, a Harvard professor who has known the president since his days as a student.

Mr. Obama believes the court must never get too far ahead of or behind public sentiment, they say. He may have a mandate for change, and Senate confirmation odds in his favor. But he has almost always disappointed those who expected someone in his position — he was Harvard’s first black law review president and one of the few minority members of the University of Chicago’s law faculty — to side consistently with liberals.

Republicans get Roberts and Alito, we get…another pseudo-liberal moderate. During the campaign, I was constantly hearing from friends and especially Obama fundraisers who responded to my unwillingness to support Obama with the old “but what about the court?” line. Well, what about the court?

If we’re going to get a moderate milquetoast douchebag who’s fond of spying, state secrets, and corporate personhood, Obama may as well appoint himself and hand the Oval Office to Joe Biden.