First: Sandra Day O'Connor

by Evan Thomas

She understood, better than many of her brethren, that the commonplace impression of the Supreme Court as the last word, the final authority, is fundamentally misleading. The Supreme Court is a political institution—not in a partisan sense, but rather in terms of the balance of power set forth in the Constitution. In momentous and hard cases, judicial review can be less a resounding judgment from On High than a kind of ongoing conversation between courts and legislatures—“no” to this, “yes” to that, and, on particularly sensitive cases like the death penalty or affirmative action, “try again.”

The Court is an essential part of a long process of melding attitudes and mores with the law of the land. Rarely is there a last word.

For both men and women the first step to getting power is to become visible to others, and then to put on an impressive show.