Effect of Judge Widener's Decision to Take Senior Status

The Maryland Daily Record has this article up on Judge Widener's decision. Here are a couple of snippets:

Now, it’s split down the middle,” said William J. Watkins Jr. of Womble Carlyle in South Carolina, who broke the news on his law firm’s blog Wednesday morning. “If Bush can’t fill the seats then his successor — which I assume will be a Democrat — can really change the tenor of the court.”

. . . .

“I think the president’s lost the opportunity to make this a more conservative court, given the timing now and who is in the Senate,” said Carl W. Tobias, Williams Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law.