obama, you know, shall we say, subtly making his voice known in terms of what the court should do? what kind of impact does that have? >> i actually think the court is more immune to those things than people realize. there's the old saying, supreme court justices read the newspapers, and of course they do, and they are quite political. he comes from a political background himself, from sacramento. he knows what's going on in that respect. but he has been on the court so long, and he's been on so many issues, i think he really looks at the law. and what's so fascinating about the story is that so many studies have shown over the years that justices make their decisions intuitively first, and then they use the law to back up their decision. i think he approaches things with a relatively open mind and then looks for case law to bolster what he eventually intimately and intuitively thinks the law is. >> so conservatives and some