I received more than 4,000 e-mails -- most of them from political liberals, quite civil and from outside the circulation area. Two readers applauded the hiring. The rest were in various states of high dudgeon.

If he sides with the liberals then it doesn't matter what O'Connor does

There are no more liberals They've all been mugged.

the Liberals have not supported Toronto.

There simply can be no repeat of anything like the NEP imposed by the federal Liberals in the 1980s. The NEP turned Western Canada's oil patch into a ghost town almost overnight. We can't let that happen again.

[Conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and liberals Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg all mentioned his] fairness. ... unpretentious to the point of being casual.