So now the battle is joined. Even before the announcement of Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court had flashed to the nation on Friday, conservative and liberal campaigns to influence the selection of her successor had kicked into high gear.

Sad, you might say. But what would you expect in a political system that has devolved so much power to the least accountable branch of government? Even John Marshall, the second chief justice, who cleverly established the Supreme Court’s role as arbiter of what’s constitutional, would have been appalled. Today the Supreme Court doesn’t just judge what’s constitutional, it makes its own laws.

The most famous case, of course, was Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. Put aside whether you think abortion is a good idea or not. Nothing in the Constitution mentions a right to an abortion. And never mind that virtually all states had laws on their books, enacted by popular decision, making abortion a crime.

By a 7-2 margin, the Supreme Court majority found that certain “emanations” from “penumbras” in the Constitution established a right to privacy that gave women the unfettered right to seek an abortion in the first trimester of a pregnancy. In so doing, the high court removed the issue from the customary venues for political decision-making – the legislatures and Congress – and gave the back of the hand to the idea that government should be of the people, by the people, for the people.

Had the Supreme Court restrained itself, several things might have happened. Abortion would probably have been legalized in a number of states, giving other states a chance to see its effects. A movement might have formed to amend the Constitution to allow abortion nationwide – the proper means provided by the Founders to assure a “living Constitution.”

But however it turned out, we would have known that the result represented the will of the majority, not the whim of nine unelected men. Those on the losing side would at least feel they had a say in the matter – and another election to which they could look forward. A Supreme Court decision is much tougher to change. No wonder the Court, once an object of awe and esteem, is now the target of brute political power, complete with heavy spending, wild rhetoric, and mud-slinging.

Sure, Republicans have played rough on judicial nominations. But Democrats seem to have lost all touch with the tradition that judicial nominations tend to reflect the views of the president, the one government official who is elected nationwide. George W. Bush was re-elected by a solid margin after promising, among other things, to nominate high court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Early in Mr. Bush’s tenure, Senator Schumer laid down the Democratic marker: Any candidate whose viewpoint diverged from liberal dogma would be considered a “right-wing extremist.” But that would seem to make extremists of the majority that elected Mr. Bush. Richard Nixon famously declared “we’re all Keynesians now.” The American mainstream is now asked to believe that we’re all extremists now.

Liberal interest groups, worried by their continued loss of clout in Congress and the White House, see the Supreme Court as their only hope for clamping their vision of the way the world ought to work on society. Ms. O’Connor, a Reagan appointee, is thus leaving office as the liberals’ favorite conservative, evoking favorable editorials in the New York Times and other left-wing organs. She tended to vote on the conservative side on economic and federalism issues – most recently in her stinging dissent from the court’s decision allowing government to take the land of one private party and award it to another – but on social issues, including abortion, she could usually be found on the other side of the fence.

Perhaps her worst opinion came in the University of Michigan case in 2003, when she cast the deciding vote to permit continued use of racial preferences – even as she expressed the hope they wouldn’t have to last more than 25 years. It was the sort of compromise decision that you might expect from a legislature, but coming from the highest court in the land, it was simply unprincipled. It made you wonder anew if we’re any longer a government of laws, rather than a government of men.

God save this honorable court, as the time-honored phrase goes. In the coming months, we’ll see whether that’s possible.

Mr. Bray is a Detroit News columnist.