The meeting, attended by several dozen guests, underlines that Mr. Ryan not only helps bring ideological ballast to the ticket but also is expected to have major appeal to donors.
The president's choices for the 11-member court had been expected by legal experts, who had pushed Mr. Obama to fill the vacancies in an effort to bring ideological balance to the court.
And a new generation would honor (like the eulogists at St. Patrick's) the civility and wit that Mr. Buckley brought to ideological debate and (like the eulogists at Carnegie Hall) the unflagging belief Mr. Mailer had in the enduring power of the novelistic imagination.
But what is most devastating is the textured insider portrait of the top Bush players bringing their ideological and partisan agenda to every issue of public policy.
But to a voter who doesn't bring strong ideological priors to the table, neither party's vision for how to manage this transition probably looks like a sure bet.
"No one's going to write a song today which starts a revolution, but I like the idea of a musical movement where different voices can bring their ideological concerns to bear," the singer-songwriter says.
Aside from Mr. Leahy, those votes belonged to two Wisconsin Democrats, Senators Herb Kohl and Russell D. Feingold, who said Judge Roberts had persuaded him that "he will not bring an ideological agenda" to the court.
Moreover, the history of the modern Republican Party suggests the nomination goes either to the better-known, most-established heir apparent — Richard Nixon, Bob Dole, both Bushes and even Mr. McCain last year — or the candidate who brings real ideological fervor, such as Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan.
When the iron curtain fell in 1989 it brought down a whole ideological construct, leaving relatively clear ground on which to build something new.
When he succumbed to pressure to hold a debate on the matter in Parliament, opponents across the ideological spectrum brought up many of the same concerns being discussed in Britain and the United States.
