Should Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign so Obama can appoint her successor ?

With the end of a Supreme Court term, when resignations are usually announced, attention has focused on Ruth Bader Ginsburg's age (81).   No one has suggested that she's not still up to the job.   In fact, the dissent she just wrote for the Hobby Lobby case would suggest that she is at the height of her powers and her influence.

It's really a political question, and it usually starts with citing statistics that Republican justices are so much better than Democratic justices at timing their leaving the court when a more like-minded president would be making the replacement nomination.   Consider that Thurgood Marshall, the giant of liberalism, was replaced by the uber conservative Clarence Thomas;  the moderate Sandra Day O'Connor by the very conservative Samuel Alito.
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Obama still has 2 and 1/2 years, and he will most like be followed by Hillary Clinton for 4 to 8 years.  That should make it fairly safe for RBG to wait a few more years.   But the stakes are so high, we can't afford to lose one liberal vote.

Others have argued that Ginsburg is so effective and has such a history of shaping the court's views of women's issues, that it's unlikely that Obama or Clinton could get anyone nearly as liberal confirmed, especially if the Republican's take control of the senate in 2014.   So she should stay.

Here's my dream scenario -- well, if I'm going to indulge in a dream scenario, I would resurrect Barbara Jordan from the dead and have Obama nominate her.    But my more realistic dream scenario is this:

Ginsburg stays on the court.   Hillary Clinton wins in 2016, and the Democrats still control the senate.   Then Hillary nominates Barack Obama to replace Ginsburg when she steps down in 2017.    Think about it.   When he taught at the University of Chicago Law School, his specialty was constutional law.     So he would combine a constitutional scholar, liberal views, plus the experience of having been president and had to deal with the consequences of SCOTUS decisions.

OK:   So here's my real dreamy team:    Let Ginsburg go ahead and resign.   By a miracle Barbara Jordan comes back to life and Obama puts her on the court.   Then Hillary wins in 2016 and puts Obama on the court to replace Clarence Thomas, who has just been impeached for repeated and obvious conflict of interests and refusing to recuse himself from those cases.

And that's only two wishes.   Don't I get three?   My #3 is a doozie:   Antonin Scalia continues his slide into dementia and goes out as a paranoid, blithering idiot.   His family intervenes and gets him to resign, and Hillary has a wide open field of smart women to choose from.

Ralph