Posted on 07/01/2005 11:06:02 AM PDT by alessandrofiaschi
WASHINGTON -- It was not merely a leak from the normally leak-proof Bush White House. For more than a week, a veritable torrent has tipped Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as President Bush's first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. It has sent the conservative movement into spasms of fear and loathing.
Gonzales long has been unacceptable to anti-abortion activists because of his record as a Texas Supreme Court justice. Beyond pro-lifers, he is opposed by organized conservative lawyers. Ironically, the same Bush supporters who have been raising money and devising tactics for the mother of all judicial confirmation fights are in a panic that Gonzales will be named. With the president's popularity falling among his conservative base as well as the general populace, a politically disastrous moment may be at hand.
The president will have to act quickly if the high court's current session ends today [Monday] with a resignation. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor now is considered more likely to quit than ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist. White House leaks describe Gonzales as the leading prospect for either vacancy. That creates a situation filled with irony, contradictions and questions.
For example, why the torrent of Gonzales leaks from a White House extraordinarily adept at holding back the president's intended nominations? It looks like a trial balloon, but there are also suspicions that Gonzales's name has been floated by critics in order to shoot him down.
If opposition to abortion is Bush's pre-eminent social conservative position, Gonzales is a most improbable choice. He could not bring himself to support parental notification on the Texas Supreme Court. While he professes to be anti-abortion, he maintains Roe v. Wade is inviolable -- a judicial version of John Kerry's formulation.
Conservatives fear Gonzales will be another in a long line of Supreme Court justices who have proved more liberal than the president who appointed them expected -- John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter. That is a view widely held inside the White House, but not by the occupant who counts most. George W. Bush loves Al Gonzales and would like his former chief counsel to head a "Gonzales Court."
Since Gonzales was confirmed as attorney general after a nasty debate over treatment of terrorist detainees, the argument he would be confirmed more easily than other prospects might seem dubious. But Senate Democrats may have expunged anti-Gonzales bile from their system and be willing to support somebody who is markedly less conservative than any other nominee.
Indeed, all other possibilities are conservative. They face trouble from Democratic senators who have led the campaign to block Bush's judicial nominees. Three of them, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, Patrick Leahy and Charles Schumer, went on the Senate floor last Thursday morning to issue a virtual ultimatum. Underneath restrained rhetoric, they were telling the president: name justices acceptable to us or face a bitter battle. Gonzales might be the most acceptable name mentioned.
The White House has sent word that two favorites of the conservative movement -- Appellate Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson (4th Circuit, Richmond, Va.) and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson -- are ineligible because they are over 60. The two current favorites are Appellate Judges John Roberts (D.C. Circuit) and J. Michael Luttig (4th Circuit).
But sources report Rehnquist is not ready to resign and that O'Connor is readying the way for a return to Arizona with her invalid husband. While Bush would consider replacing one of the court's two women with its first Hispanic justice, neither Roberts nor Luttig for O'Connor would be politically correct.
Accordingly, White House judge-hunters are looking for a woman. They have interviewed Appellate Judge Edith Brown Clement (5th Circuit, New Orleans), a conservative who flies under the radar. She was confirmed as a Louisiana district judge in 1991, seven weeks after her nomination by the first President Bush, and was confirmed as an appellate judge in 2001, two and a half months after George W. Bush named her.
Clement would be subject to far more scrutiny as a Supreme Court nominee. So would any other conservative named by Bush, though Democrats may have exhausted scrutinizing Gonzales. The president must choose between a fierce confirmation fight or the alienation of his political base.
©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Novak is usually wrong
unfortunately politics is about getting only part of what you want.
you never get all of what you want.
Yes, Bush will be as big a failure as his father was if he nominated Gonzales. It will be his defining moment, a politicial disaster that will permanently stain his legacy.
All those extra voters and then some might stay home for elections to come. It would be little hard to get enthusiastic about a Republican party that allowed far left-wing policies to be implemented by judicial dictators for decades to come.
Too bad we can't clone Scalia.
Don't worry... The "V" word is involved with this seat on the Court. No one with a "P" will get the spot. So unless he gets a sex change operation, Gonzales doesn't qualify.
Gonzales is anti RKBA. That's all I need to know.
We've been electing Republicans for a decade and the conservative movement has virtually NOTHING to show for it. Government spending exploded in the first four years of the Bush administration, nothing is being done about illegal immigration and, now, we're accept nothing being done to fix the far-left wing, tryannical judiciary?
that i would like.
3 of the pubbies ussc appointees have gone liberal.
but the liberal appointees never do the like, go conservative.
Who is George W. Bush? Who is this man?
I agree but, at least, we could clonate a Thomas-in-white: Judge John Roberts (D.C. Circuit), a great man.
i agree.
but there are other realities.
my understanding was that president bush wants his friend gonzalez on the court.
and then there is the matter of latins in america. like fdr made jews feel at home with a couple of appointees, bush would act in a similar fashion and make mexicans feel at home in america.
OK, I'll give up private Social Security accounts if they'll stop slaughtering babies.
cute.
NO TO GONZALEZ!!
He is just another DOJ hack moving up in the ranks.
We need a Justice from OUTSIDE the beltway!
Good grief... it was one case that caused this controversy. In his opinion on that case, he stated several things...
"…the duty of a judge is to follow the law as written by the Legislature…. Legislative intent is the polestar of statutory construction. Our role as judges requires that we put aside our own personal views of what we might like to see enacted, and instead do our best (my emphasis) to discern what the Legislature actually intended."When he served as a Texas Supreme Court Justice, he ruled on just ten cases involving a state law that requires teens either to notify their parents before having an abortion or establish before a court that they are mature enough to be granted a judicial bypass. In eight of those cases, he ruled against the teens and did so even though the cases involved situations where the teen feared physical abuse from a parent."While the ramifications of such a law may be personally troubling to me as a parent, it is my obligation as a judge to impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on the decisions of the legislature."
As the Court demonstrates, the Legislature certainly could have written section 33.033(i) to make it harder to bypass a parent’s right to be involved in decisions affecting their daughters. But it did not. Likewise, parts of the statute’s legislative history directly contradict the suggestion that the Legislature intended bypasses to be very rare. Thus, to construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism."
"As a judge, I hold the rights of parents to protect and guide their children as one of the most important rights in our society. But I cannot rewrite the statute to make parental rights absolute, or virtually absolute, particularly when, as here, the legislature has elected not to do so."
He also got alot of flack for saying he would support Roe v Wade as AG. Well, duh...since Roe v Wade IS THE LAW, he is only upholding the current law, that is his job. That DOES NOT mean he is pro-abortion. On the contrary, his opinions indicate that these cases troubled him deeply and he threw the ball back at the Legislature to correct the flawed law. The legislature came back the following session and did set a higher standard. Gonzales is a strict constructionist, and proved it in this case.
But another Souter or Kennedy would not be getting ANY of what you want.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.