Unfortunately, Reagan does not set the agenda for the court, and justices have to hear cases on issues such as bankruptcy court jurisdiction, assessing legal fees, and complex antitrust, securities, admiralty, and liability issues.

Lots of judges out there might fit Reagan's criteria on abortion, school prayer and friendliness to big business. But plenty of them are not good judges capable of reasoning and balancing issues that range from the obscure or trivial or unexpectedly profound. And if Reagan chooses a clown, then he might do well by antiabortion groups, but flop for the country as a whole.

With such reasoning and far more analytical grace, Tribe hopes to persuade the President and the Senate to be moderate. His broad guidelines are to find justices who believe the Bill of Rights should be applied to the states, who believe that the "one-person, one-vote" doctrine is correct, who are neither communists nor capitalist pigs, who will not strike down amendments to the Constitution to outlaw abortion or other issues. He wants judges who are capable of making decisions, who have a clear philosophy about the court's role. In short, he wants very intelligent judges, because if you're conservative, you might as well be intelligent and reasoned about it.

THESE ARE GOOD--but there's something funny about the fact that Attorney General Edwin Meese has recently begun attacking the court for not paying attention to the original intention of the Framers of the Constitution. This is an attitude belittled by Tribe as a futile exercise in historical mind games; it is also important to Tribe that future justices not hold this illfounded ideal. Tribe is probably right on this count. His argument packs a lot of authority and logic, but Meese isn't listening. And why would he?

Tribe's second criterion is that the Senate carefully attempt to balance the philosophical composition of the court. Not too many liberals, conservatives, or fence-sitters.

But given the exigencies of moral rectitude and appeals to what the public wants--and these days, it seems, that's conservatives--it is a rare Senate and President that will look to the future, much less to their fifth grade civics lessons.