October 28, 2005
SCOTUS choice Monday or Tuesday
A source close to the selection process will make a final decision about a Supreme Court nominee this weekend and plans to introduce nominee on Monday or Tuesday. Names that allies are pushing this a.m: Judge Samuel Alito and Judge Michael McConnell. [MARC AMBINDER]
Posted at 08:39 AM
Comments
I'm sure President Bush is disappointed that he had to withdraw Miers name (make no mistake the idea to withdraw was more the White House's than her), but I think he's quite fortunate.
Now he can pick a true conservative that will please his base.
Robert Lowell | 10.28.05 10:48 AM
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Republicans are hypocritical! You say no litmus test for SCOTUS only when it doesn't apply to you. Those that voted Republican are finding out your're nothing but empty (corporate) suits. Once the public (and they're slow to get it because they have lives to lead) catches on, you're exodus to political pergatory will last a long time.
mediaman | 10.28.05 03:18 PM
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What a ridiculous comment by mediaman. Whose litmus test? The President nominated a reasonably moderate woman (where is the litmus test here?), who withdrew for one simple reason -- she didn't have the votes in the Senate and wasn't going to get them any time soon. And what was the major objection? Her qualifications -- not her ideology. She is a very impressive, highly accomplished woman, but not only has she never been a judge, she has no experience in constitutional law. And mediaman's low opinion of the public notwithstanding, the public knows this.
Now, do individual Senators have litmus tests? Sure, some do -- but mostly on the Left! How many Republicans voted to confirm the ultra-liberal Ginsburg? A LOT.
I fail to see mediaman's point.
Mark Abramson | 10.28.05 04:46 PM
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I DO have a litmus test - I will only support strict constructionist/original intent judges. The fact that they are looking at original intent and know that the constitution IS NOT a living document just so happens to also mean that they won't pretend to find rights that do no exist anywhere in the constitution.
I was a Luttig man all the way, but from what I know of him - Alito would be a nice choice too.
Things seem to be back on track now.
David | 10.28.05 06:10 PM
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Why do we continue to appoint catholics to the court when one of the most important questions of the day is evolution. The offical doctrine of the catholic church and confirmed again by the pope in 1996 is that God created the world by evolution.
Evolution or creation is the basic issue of the day on which all moral issues and the authority of our constitution and law stands. How can someone who doesn't even believe the Bible is true make just rulings upon a Constitution that is based upon the Bible.
J Robb
John Robb | 10.29.05 01:19 PM
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This is what one grain of sand on the beach sent to the President's cubbyhole of only low level staff read emails:
Mr. President,
Many of us really do believe you can save a faltering presidency with your next nomination to the Supreme Court. The Miers' nomination was like loading a case for a .223 40 grain bullet with 10.5 grains of H110; light in weight, limited capacity, and fast-burning --- great choice for light game and varminting.
What you need is not a friend that goes well with backyard barbecues, but one that will serve the Constitution, as intended by the Founders, in keeping with the likes of Chief Justice John Marshall, if one can be found. Your duty, yes, your duty, Mr. President, is to protect this country from having only two branches of government, executive and judicial, instead of three; when the judicial becomes the legislative the disproportionate round and load will explode the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
What we need and want, in spite of the cowardly lions worrying about the next election, is a Supreme Court nominee like a 458 Winchester Magnum 300 grain round, cased with 66.9 grains of H4198; the power you will need to deal with the most dangerous game. Pointed in the wrong direction it easily brings down elephants, but has the advantage of being outstanding in short range brushy (Kennedys, Shumers, Feinsteins, etc.) conditions --- you will be able to see the "forest".
So, Mr. President, please consider nominees such as: Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit, Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit, Judge Samuel Alito, Jr. of the Third Circuit, Justice Sam Cummings of the Fifth Circuit, Justice Janice Rogers Brown, and, two of the Constitution's favorites, Luttig and McConnell. At all costs, avoid another backyard barbecue friend, Alberto Gonzales.
This country needs a "blood" and "guts" rebellion on the floor of the Senate capable of grabbing the citizen's interest as never before --- we need a lavage to expose the real nature of the Constitution, hidden from us for too long. Is this not the "tree of our liberties" and does not the debate of patriots and tyrants become its natural manure --- better than bullets?
Dean Anderson | 10.29.05 03:21 PM
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The dems could have burned him big time by voting for her. Beside that she was ill equiped to be a Justice.
id
idgaf | 10.29.05 11:18 PM
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The dems could have burned him big time by voting for her. Beside that she was ill equiped to be a Justice.
id
how many fucking days to you need to approve someone on this loser site?
idgaf | 10.29.05 11:19 PM
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I'm one who was tremendously disappointed at the President's selection of Miers as an associate justice for SCOTUS. As a lifetime conservative republican this was another in a long line of political downers - busting the budget, Katrina, failure to secure our borders, etc. - where Bush came up short. I'm just about ready to jump ship. If the President fails, out of political expediency, to put forth a strong judicial conservative in the vein of Scalia and Thomas, and instead tried to shove a Gonzalez-like vanilla moderate down our throats, somebody that Sens. Reid and Kennedy will drool over, I'm gone.
Dennis | 10.30.05 06:44 AM
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Where is the REAL Justice , Rob. Bork
Eagledenny | 10.30.05 10:37 AM
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The whole Harriet Miers thing has confused me. The Democrats insist that President Bush choose judges that advocate liberal and Democratic views because they should get minority representation - they threaten to filibuster anyone that President Bush would choose that exemplifies conservative and Republican attitudes.
When President Bush's choice for judges were filibustered by Democrats, Republicans screamed that President Bush should be able to pick whomever he wants to pick.
But when President Bush picked Harriet Meirs for a Supreme Court justice, Republicans whined that he shouldn't pick whomever he wants, President Bush should pick who THEY want. This is a fine bit of hypocrisy that I found a tad disgusting.
Oh, Republicans who objected to Harriet found some beautiful rationalizations for why President Bush shouldn't pick her. Not enough experience, cronyism, we don't know enough about her thoughts, her attitudes, her beliefs, her prejudices, whether she would be able to resist the Washington liberal social scene, and so on.
But what many Republicans have shown is that they don't truly have faith in the W presidency. They don't believe that W is a serious president - they believe he is a shallow man, not a serious thinker or a man of substance after all.
Well, those Republican wimps are wrong. President George W. Bush is a man with substance, and a devious man as well. This leads me to believe that Harriet Miers was never a serious candidate. So what I want to know is...
What is this devious man up to? And whatever it is, I hope it seriously pisses off not just the Democrats, but those wimpy Republicans who didn't support him as well!
Bill | 10.30.05 10:46 AM
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I have been a conservative for 53 years, since Sen. Bob Taft breathed new life into a dead movement under FDR, in the mid-Forties.
With Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, I left the party after a half century and will not again vote for anyone supported by George Bush. I remain a conservative, but without a party.
Roberts' selection and the Miers nomination
revealed for any doubters that the Bush family is missing at least two important genes, the loyalty gene and the promise-keeping gene; no doubt a deficiency inherited from George the First and his father, Prescott Bush.
Roberts is a closet liberal, as we shall see when he has cast a half dozen obligatory decisions to distract Republicans. Miers was twice as qualified as 'Ruth Buzzy' Ginsberg, whose only real experience was as a shouter and stomper for the dispicable ACLU.
Yet, she was given a pass by the Judiciary Committee and only later was it discovered that the Committee had not checked to see that she was legally entitled to practice law.
Miers was demeaned because it was a chance for far-left wingers to slap Bush, one more time.
We should remember that serving on the Supreme Court is not the same as holding a day job doing brain surgery.
Justices rarely, if ever, research their own case law, there are eager young lawyers to do that. Others to handle the running of their offices and, for all I know, to make sure the black robes get to the cleaners.
] They don't even have to read the daily newspaper before climbing on the bench. There is no reading test for Justices, and any who believe they read int he US Constitution that there is our kind of separation of church and state, or a right to privacy for abortion, etc., should automatically have their nomination withdrawn.
Some, I am sure, don't bother reading the summaries prepared by their clerks, because they have already decided that this case or that violates the 'standards' of the far-left; i.e. the alleged right to unfettered abortion, affirmative action, kicking God out of public places, and ad naseum.
Any capable county judge in the US could handle the job, presuming that he or she reads at the eighth grade level and has the smarts to keep a copy of the US Constitution somewhere nearby.
Conservatives should be wary of relaxing in the hope that Bush will appoint a real conservative to the Court.
He will not.
It is his nature to try another end run around conserevatives, as he did with Roberts, and install another dreaded closet-liberal.
Remember, you read it here first.
Gordon Crump | 10.30.05 03:10 PM
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This was another Souter-type nomination in the works. Now it's time for the administration to take the lefties head-on, with someone like Janice Rogers Brown.
The right Republican response to Democratic filibusters is, "Make my day!" I can just see a "What if everybody did?" TV ad, showing the consequences if both parties engaged in what the Democrats are doing--no new justices for the Court, decisions made by fewer and fewer justices.
I'm with Dennis. I have one foot out the door. If the new nominee is another Souter-type, I'm outta here, too.
Ken Howes | 10.30.05 08:35 PM
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Oh mediaman - people like you with little regard for real ides are so deserving of little notice. Maybe if you had some constructive thought you could join the debate. The cathartic debate brought about by the Meirs nomination was a breath of fresh air for most of us who aren't afraid to see other sides of a question and the merit of fighting for our ideas in the Republican party. The strict interpretation of the constitution not as a "living" document ready to be twisted for these strange times you libs are putting us through but as a solid guide for our country.
I suggest that you temper your hate and join the world. I have lived in Ukraine for 8 years during which there was little progress because of censorship and lack of ideas and now Germany where there is no money for entrepreneurship and no way to stem the tide of entitlement and socialism. You are lucky to live in the freest country in the world. Count your blessings and get a life.
Barbara Shriver | 10.31.05 05:52 AM
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