An unrelated picture of the partially melted wax head of founding father and first United States President George Washington.

WASHINGTON-- Sandra Day O'Connor's sudden resignation last month from the Supreme Court surprised Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Rehnquist said he was amazed to learn retirement is an option. "Hell, if I would have known you could just up and quit I would have done so years ago." Rehnquist continued, "I could just take these four golden bars on my robe's sleeves and sew them on my sweat suit at home. That would be great, no more trying to TiVo Matlock and Family Ties re-runs and having to listen to that wind-bag Clarence Thomas talk to all the women in a five mile radius about Coca-Cola and pubic hair. And don't get me started on that S.O.B. Scalia."

O'Connor's resignation signals the departure of a pioneering justice who was the most influential member of a divided court. It also ignites a political firestorm over her successor, and gives President Bush a chance to make a lasting imprint on the bench.

In a statement released by the court, O'Connor, 75, said she was leaving in part to spend more time with her husband. John O'Connor, also 75, has been suffering from Alzheimer's disease and incontinence unrelated to the disease. Her resignation creates the first opening on the Supreme Court in 11 years, the bench's longest period without a departure since 1812-1823. The former Arizona state senator was at the ideological center of the court and was the court's equilibrium, resisting moves by her colleagues to move the court too much to the left or to the right.

To the disappointment of many conservative Republicans, hypocritical politicians are falling out of favor, and O'Connor cast key votes protecting abortion rights, an issue that is certain to be a key point in the Senate confirmation hearings for whoever Bush chooses as her replacement. In disputes over the separation of church and state, O'Connor generally supported limited government mingling with religion. She also took a lead role as the Rehnquist court boosted states' rights and curtailed congressional intervention in the affairs of local governments.

She often was criticized - by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, among others - for seeming to have no hard-and-fast rules on the law and for compromising too much, compared with Scalia who is widely known to consult a Magic Eight Ball in making all of his decisions. But O'Connor, the only member of the current court who ever held elective office, favored real government action to come from elected legislators, not through judicial activism.