Obligatory Souter Retirement Post

As even tribespeople deep in the wilds of Africa know by now, Justice Souter is set to retire shortly.

I don't have much unique to add to the wealth of commentary that's already out there. To date, I've been rooting for Leah Ward Sears because we went to the same law school. Obama's not realistically appointing anyone with whom I'd agree on much, so I might as well forget judicial philosophy and cheer Sears on for purely tribal/self-interested reasons. Actually, she might well be one of the more moderate people on the short list -- see, e.g., her Solomonic baby-splitting on marriage in WaPo -- so she might be a desirable choice even for non-tribal reasons.

Also, snark aside, what is up with Ed Whelan's contention that liberals want to invent a constitutional right to human cloning? I had plenty of left-leaning professors in law school who were happy to discuss their pet projects for the Supreme Court, and I also went to plenty of ACS panel discussions and things. They were definitely excited about tortute; international human rights; the death penalty; abortion; and Ledbetter, but not so much human cloning. Had they been, I think I would have noticed. Is there some prominent liberal law professor who wrote a much-talked about article on human cloning that I somehow managed to miss?

Policy wise, I am not terribly excited about cloning. The moral questions are thorny and difficult, which means that government is likely to try to solve them in ways that will screw things up irreparably. But I don't know much about the topic, and I could be mistaken entirely.

Finally,