"I wish she would step down."

In Washington chatter circles, it's in jaded vogue to say Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg owes it to the greater good to surrender her seat on the bench at 81. President Obama could then make a pick that would get confirmed and so on.

The Senate knows not what the Senate does next.

Never surrender, Madam Justice. Stand your ground. The male chorus of opinion — law school professors, journalists, even a retired justice — is wrong. You are irreplaceable. It takes cheek to campaign against you. And let's be honest, calls to retire may be because you are a woman. They smack of taking women less seriously. Certainly this subtle high-class sexism doesn't speak its name; nor can it be legally taken to task. The men involved may plead innocent, saying it's political strategy.

So here's a full-throated reply. Ginsburg is too precious to the people in her wisdom and compassion. Her lifework is a paragon of American justice, especially to those who needed it most, working women. She stands for us, her clarity undimmed. Her oral argument questions, peppered from the bench, are known to be quick, precise and elegant.

"She has demonstrated such acuity of mind and legal judgment that to think about age is almost an insult," Marvin Kalb, the distinguished author and broadcast journalist, said. He conducted a "Kalb Report" interview with Justices Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia last week at the National Press Club.

The dueling justices sounded like a lively Mozartian duet on the First Amendment. It gave a rare opportunity to hear their minds at work in a civilian setting. In fact, an opera titled "Scalia/Ginsburg" was played in part at a Washington event for the National Constitution Center, which Justices Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer attended Thursday.

Appointed by President Clinton, Ginsburg's not one to brag, but she's the leading liberal light. She's also the conscience of the Court. Nobody in that building burns brighter than she. Not her fellow opera buff, Scalia, the prickly 78-year-old appointed by President Reagan at age 40. Not even conservative Chief Justice John Roberts is equal to Ginsburg's candlepower. Oh, Roberts is polished and politic, with a brilliant legal mind, but he's not as seasoned in the human condition.

As a lawyer, Ginsburg pioneered and settled a new realm, bringing suits on behalf of women in the workplace. For her generation, sex discrimination happened all the time, unless skilled labor was needed, as in World War II. When she was done practicing law, it didn't happen all the time.

Just as the late Justice Thurgood Marshall worked as a lawyer in concert with the civil rights movement, Ginsburg gave legal teeth and meaning to the women's movement's advancements.

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If Ginsburg's stature is to be compared to anyone, it's Marshall. They made profound progress in "Equal Justice Under Law" before their Court chapters. The longest-serving Justices, Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, born in 1936, were appointed by Reagan early in their 40s. The "silent" Justice, Clarence Thomas, barely confirmed by the Senate, was young when he took Marshall's seat at 43. He has vowed to stay until he's 86 to get even with his critics.

So if anybody should be going, it's Scalia or Kennedy. They have delighted us long enough, after 25 years. Kennedy has ceased to be a swing vote; he's a hardened piece of fruit. The middle ground is all but gone.

Here's Marc Tracy in The New Republic: "But, to be blunt — and with all due respect to Ginsburg, a brilliant jurist whose pre-court work on women's rights alone would have made her one of the most influential lawyers of the past half-century — Ginsburg doesn't know that the next president will be a Democrat."

Dahlia Lathwick, who covers courts and the law for Slate, is a refreshing proponent of Ginsburg's, saying, "Justice Ginsburg is at the top of her game!" Sounds almost like an aria.

Marshall, as an octogenarian, let nobody hurry him out the courthouse door. When asked how long he meant to stay, Marshall replied, "until the end of my term."

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.