President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed nine Supreme Court justices who would shape American law for generations, delivering opinions on voting rights, civil liberties and other issues that arose long after the Roosevelt administration.

Wielding similar powers the next President could set a legal legacy lasting years. Four Justices may retire with John Paul Stevens (88), Ruth Bader Ginsberg (75), David H. Souter (69) and Steven G. Breyer (70) holding the Left side of the bench.

Obama would likely not follow Conservative jurisprudence points and would change the court from the “strict constructionist” applications of interpretation to using a value system.

Obama has suggested that precedents, text and other legal tools can provide a just outcome in “95% of the cases,” and for the “truly difficult” cases that remain, the “last mile can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”

What Obama is saying is personal conviction and values should help decide cases not the US Constitution. Obama would select justices who prefer legislation from the bench instead of the legislature as provided by the Founding Fathers.

Stephen Breyer, who contends that judicial interpretation should be informed by “context, history and the practical outcomes of a decision,” while Conservatives like Antonin Scalia, argue that the only approach is to follow what he believes a text meant when it was written.

“I appreciate the temptation on the part of Justice Scalia…to assume” that if the 18th century text is followed “without question or deviation…all good will flow,” Sen. Obama writes in his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”

“Ultimately, though, I have to side with Justice Breyer’s view of the Constitution — that it is not a static but rather a living document.”

Liberals use the term, “living document” as code for changing the Constitution to fit their value system and to change the law from the bench. This is not how the Constitution was meant to work and is simply a method to change the culture of America to fit Socialist views and to move away from Democracy.

An Obama administration would not stop with the Supreme Court but assign Liberals throughout the country to the Federal bench.

Sen. Obama has “a vision of the Supreme Court that I think is deeply wrong,” says Edward Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a former Scalia clerk.

“I see that as a graver danger than someone who might be less knowledgeable about the court.”

Former Solicitor General and Constitutional scholar Theodore Olson, says the Democrat “is looking for someone who would make judicial decisions based upon emotions and sympathy and picking the underdog, rather than applying the law.”

Liberals complain that when the law is sometimes followed by the courts justice is not the end result. Ledbetter v. Goodyear, is a case that exemplified Obama’s concerns. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion threw out a female employee’s claim that she was paid less than men performing the same job because she hadn’t complained within the law’s 180-day time limit which the majority said should run from her first unfair paycheck. She discovered the disparity years later.

This may be wrong but it’s not the job of the courts to change the law on the fly but of the legislature. This type of thinking could change the face of justice with power not included in the Constitution and divert separation of that power.

If laws are changed the Legislative Branch should perform those duties preceded by healthy debate in the public square. In fact, if equal pay is of concern to Mr. Obama than he could apply that thinking within his own campaign.

On average, women working in Obama’s Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator. That’s according to data calculated from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate, which covered the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007. Of the five people in Obama’s Senate office who were paid $100,000 or more on an annual basis, only one — Obama’s administrative manager — was a woman.

The average pay for the 33 men on Obama’s staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama’s staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91. (The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama’s staff was $55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729. The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the period, who was a male.)

Mr. Obama thinks allowing the Supreme Court and the Federal branches to legislate from the bench is a good thing. Many of his law professor friends think this too is an excellent idea.

Change may be coming and it won’t be the justice we are seeking. If Obama can’t practive what he preaches to the American people he is more dangerous than anyone may imagine. Indeed!