THE BIGGEST CONSEQUENCE of the midterm elections may well concern judges. Because the Republicans now control the Senate, President Bush is in a far better position than he was during his first two years in office to change the confirmation process for the better and to see his nominees confirmed.

For all of that, and it is a lot, Bush has himself mainly to thank. In case you wonder, he hasn’t done that. His reluctance to take any credit for his party’s capture of the Senate is a testimony to his political prudence. Yet when histories of the Bush presidency are written, his labors in behalf of Republican Senate candidates in 2002 may well deserve their own chapter, precisely because the outcome now gives him the upper and potentially pacifying hand in the judges’ wars.