In 1990, George H.W. Bush, listening to then-White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, nominated David Souter to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sununu, who as governor of New Hampshire had nominated Souter to the Granite State's supreme court in 1983, assured Bush that Souter would be a "home run" for the conservative cause.

That's not what happened.

Souter quickly lurched leftward, joining the 1992 court majority in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that upheld the core abortion "right" holding of Roe v. Wade. By the time of his retirement in 2009 — a decision that paved the way for Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor — Souter had established himself as a reliable vote for the court's liberal bloc. The conservative legal movement, which was ascendant at the time, responded with a unifying rallying cry: "No more Souters."

That cri du coeur means more than "no more liberals." For conservatives, what it means — or at least what it once meant — is no more "stealth" selections to the nation's highest court. There will be no more simply taking the John Sununu's of Washington at their word. Rather, a nominee must have a demonstrable track record of integrity, courage, intellectual consistency and across-the-board excellence.

It's unclear whether conservatives have ever learned their lesson. George W. Bush gave us the superb Samuel Alito, but he also gave us the fickle John G. Roberts. In his first term, Donald Trump made three picks to the high court; none are........

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