I don’t think “too liberal” has really been an issue for a very long time. A Democratic president (not necessarily a liberal president) hasn’t had a choice for quite some time now, and that’s probably why the issue hasn’t come up.
In addition, I tend to think on the real hot button social issues, “liberal” causes are generally less intrusive. Pro-choice doesn’t actually impact people who don’t want to get an abortion for example. Neither does gay marriage, although a possible exception would be racial quotas, but that is in many ways recognized as being offset by preferential treatment of other groups in, say, college admissions, etc. This is probably not true for things like economic issues, but then again after Clinton’s centrist swing on trade policy, I’m not sure how much of a concern that is anyway. After all, sound economic policy has much stronger guidelines than “sound” social policy.
As for justices making law, well, they’ve done that since the Marshall court. I find the concern from the US right somewhat disingenuous, in that “no judicial activism” appears to be a cover word for advancement of socially conservative causes. Any act of judgment, even one to uphold precedent, is an act of judicial action, refining and redefining the parameters of the law. Whether a judge upholds the finding in Griswold, say, or does not, it still impacts the parameters of legal behavior in the United States and is in that sense, activist.
