I like his ruling on Marijuana too. An all around freedom man.
Jance Rogers would be my personal choice (that way you get thomas on the court too) and have the two top justices on the court be black. Not that thats any big deal to us, but to the libs, who measure people by color, will result in a coniption over there.
I agree. Both freedom loving individuals!
I personally favor Justice Thomas as Chief Justice and Janice Rogers to take his seat on the court.
I'd be happy to see Thomas in the Chief Justice's chair as a second choice after Scalia (who I think deserves the shot and is the older man, and the best mind on the Court), and Brown as a new Associate Justice (even though she is a bit inexperienced on the bench yet, and another originalist or strict-constructionist appeals-court judge or state supreme-court justice might be a better choice), but I think Bush has already shown his hand.
There was a story in our local paper this week to the effect that Bush had his aides checking out appeals court judges for the top spot, and that he had his new AG, Gonzalez, on the list -- but on a sheet of paper all to himself. The thinking seemed to be that Bush will walk right past Scalia and Thomas in order to put a Hispanic in the Chief Justice's job.
Now, Gonzalez would be a far weaker choice than either Thomas or Scalia on merit and experience, and weaker than O'Connor, like whom Gonzalez would apparently vote.
Gonzalez IMHO would move the Court to the left. Turned loose with a life appointment as CJ, he might even turn into a Kennedy or a Souter or an Earl Warren, and just run wild.
But I think I see the point, which is that nominating Gonzalez is a Rovian imperative: the Mexicans are swamping the country, both Dims and big GOP contributors want the borders held wide open -- the Dims because they see Mexican-Americans and newly-dipped illegals voting 70-30 Democrat, the big Republicans because they want to crush wages across the board with an endless stream of Malthusian Third-World masses .
Therefore it is imperative that Bush Hispander to the newcomers, and one way to do it is to give them Power, and to be very conspicuous about it -- hence the nomination of Gonzalez, come hell or high water, irrespective of merit or of how he would vote if he got on the Court.
Furthermore -- and here is the really Rovian part -- you can count on the Dims to have a cow if and when Bush puts Gonzalez up, and his nomination might even fail. If so, at least Bush gets credit among the Chicanos for having tried to put the son of an illegal immigrant on the Supreme Court.
It's all about the votes. That means Scalia and Thomas have to take a number. It also means that Bush is turning his back on the entire Republican Party, except for the big employers, and that his mandate comes from perhaps 100,000 people at the top of the economic pyramid who think they can control things no matter how many Mexicans end up voting in U.S. elections, with or without citizenship, if only they can work up to a 50-50 split of the Mexican vote. They're already getting about 50% of the Central American and South American vote, and a majority of the Cubanos down in Florida.
As for the consequences for the rest of us, they don't care. Or, to be blunt about it, they see it as imperative that they make things worse for the rest of us, and they know how to get it done.
Personally, by the way, and absent any other considerations, I think it would make more sense for Bush to fill Chief Justice Rehnquist's position with a sitting Justice, and then nominate his young AG for an Associate position. But the newspaper article was clear, that the interviews and backgrounding now going on are for the Chief Justice's job. It would appear that nothing less will satisfy the President, than that he install the son of an illegal immigrant as the jefe juez of the entire Judicial Branch of the United States Government.
Try wrapping your minds around that.
I think if Reqnuist and O'Connor retire, then if Bush chose Thomas as Chief Justice and then Brown and perhaps Luttig for the other two vacancies, the liberals would have a fit trying to figure out whom to oppose.