to have factored in as far as the timing to bow out. and he would certainly have been aware of it. what i actually do find kind of amazing is that justice kennedy is someone who carri cares a gr deal about the institutional legitimacy of the supreme court. and we re coming up on a midterm election that otherwise would have been a referendum on the extraordinary and might be deeply disturbing developments of the first two years of the trump administration. and he just dropped a supreme court size nuclear bomb into the middle of that electoral landscape. and instead of waiting a year, he made the decision to retire at a moment where i think many people will remark could serve to the advantage to republicans who will now either have the chance to confirm a justice right before the midterms or to go into the midterms with an open seat which has historically motivated their base a great deal. so i don t know. i think the timing of the