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Good evening. justice louis powell, a courtly southerner surprised almost everyone today by announcing his retirement from the u.s. supreme court. his decision touched off a flurry of speculation on who the president will appoint as a replacement and how that will affect the direction of the court and, of course, the country. nbc correspondent carl stern reports tonight what makes the retirement of the 79-year-old justice so significant is the special role that he played on the court. >> since louis powell put on the robe 15 years ago, it was often his vote that made the difference. whether vo...

Good evening. justice louis powell, a courtly southerner, surprised almost everyone today by announcing his retirement from the u.s. supreme court. his decision touched off a flurry of speculation on who the president will appoint as a replacement and how that will affect the direction of the court, and of course the country. as carl stern reports tonight, what makes the return of the justice so significant is the special role he played on the court. since louis powell put on the robe 15 years ago, it was often his vote that made the difference. whether voting conservative as president nixon h...

That doesn't work if you're a left winger. >> presumably a lot of these upper body guys who are voting conservative don't go to the gym and hang out in the steam room. they got that way from lifting iron ingets -- >> i don't work out in the steam room. i work it there. >> we have to move on. >> why should we move on? >> if you have a video of your animal doing something -- not like the cat because the cat was a little disturbing to me. or is it because i like the cat that it was disturbing? i don't know anymore. i think i'm falling apart. >> still to come, the halftime report. what a welcome b...

We found lots of republicans, for instance, in the last cycle coming from pretty moderate districts but voting conservative down the line because they're too afraid of a primary challenge or getting clobbered in ads. >> isn't it also a polarized media world? aren't many of them taking queues from behind microphones? >> definitely. you have a coarsening of the culture. you have more partisan media that encourages it so people can stovepipe their messages to their own people. all in all it's not unlike the situation that ronald reagan faced when he got to washington. there were tons of republica...

>> what causes it? >> i think it's a bunch of things. some of it is redistricting, just getting elected from districts that are more and more partisan and need not be moderate and can't generate moderates. some are the interest groups that pound on these guys to tow the party line even when the districts are moderate. we found lots of republicans, for instance, in the last cycle coming from pretty moderate districts but voting conservative down the line because they're too afraid of a primary challenge or getting clobbered in ads. >> isn't it also a polarized media world? aren't many of them t...