Posted on 07/05/2005 11:34:02 AM PDT by RWR8189
THROUGH A CAMPAIGN AIDE, Bush answered a question about the kind of Supreme Court justice he admired. The answer was Antonin Scalia, a conservative. That was in 1999, as Bush was beginning his race for the presidency. He was asked a similar question later that year by Tim Russert on Meet the Press. The answer was the same--Scalia. Now jump to the summer of 2003 as Bush is preparing for his reelection campaign. Meeting with advisers at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Bush said one of his top priorities is to create a diverse Republican party with many more Hispanics.
Bush's comments point to the two directions he must choose between in selecting a nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. The first--the Scalia direction--would be to pick a respected conservative jurist and thus move the ideological tilt of the court to the right. The second would be to choose Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or another Hispanic, a step unlikely to change the court's current ideological posture.
The first would be in sync with the thrust of Bush's presidency. As Bush and his aides never tire of telling everyone, he came to the White House to do big things and achieve important changes. And transforming the Supreme Court into a more conservative body and shrinking the role of unelected judges in American life is one of his major goals.
Bush also prides himself on not doing the easy or politically popular thing. He could have sought minor adjustments in Social Security to improve its solvency, but he chose to promote total reform. After routing al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, he could have stopped and gone no further, preserving his high poll rating. Instead he deposed Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Nominating a full-blown judicial conservative--there are plenty to choose from--would surely provoke a bitter confirmation struggle in the Senate. He might even lose the fight. But all of Bush's accomplishments have come over the strong opposition of Democrats or have drawn sharp criticism from them. This includes tax cuts, education reform, creation of a Homeland Security Department, and Iraq. Bush's motto, if he had one, should be no pain, no gain.
Placing another conservative on the high court, and perhaps several more if other resignations occur, would give Bush a lasting and extraordinarily significant legacy. And by nudging the court to the right Bush would merely be counteracting what President Clinton did with his two Supreme Court nominations. Clinton filled vacancies on the court with liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Each replaced a more conservative justice, Harry Blackmun and Byron White, respectively.
Naming Gonzales or another Hispanic to the high court would be in line with Bush's political goal of enlarging the Republican party. And picking Gonzales might indeed help in that regard. He would be the first Hispanic justice. A Gonzales nomination would also be personally satisfying to Bush. "The president loves Alberto Gonzales and trusts him," Texas Senator John Cornyn, a friend of both, said. Gonzales was Bush's White House counsel before becoming attorney general.
But there's a difference between trying to improve the position of a political party and seizing an historic opportunity to change both the role and the rulings of the federal judiciary. The first is a decision any president or politician would make. Given the furor the second could provoke, it's a decision only a few presidents would make. My guess is Bush is one of them.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
"A constituent nominee, Davis says, appeals to a president with political capital to spend, like Ronald Reagan naming the staunchly conservative Robert Bork, or to a president facing an election campaign in which he needs to keep a particular group in the fold, like George H. W. Bush choosing Clarence Thomas to satisfy social conservatives. Bill Clinton looked for consensus nominees, because he tended to govern by merging divergent interests into triangulated solutions."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg = politically moderate consensus nominee in the bizarro world of the NY Times.
Or anyone educated in the Northeast. Bush should know how hard it is for anyone to resist the desire to blend with the coastal "elites."
Or Breyer for that matter. OK for Clinton to tilt the court to the left; bad for Bush to tilt it to the right, which is to say, back toward the center.
I would never nominate a white man from the north-east to the supreme court, they can't be trusted.
Well, you’ve just cost yourself this white man’s vote! I will not let you stand in the way of my Supreme Court appointment!
I was merely addressing Barnes' contention that Bush couldn't nominate an hispanic conservative to both move the court right & help in getting some of the hispanic vote for Republicans. My personal choices are Janice Rogers Brown (though I doubt she's on his list), Michael Luttig & Michael McConnell.
The principle is solid in that the more opposition one faces, the more temptation to fold, if they emerge with the same principles intact they are far less likely to be seduced by the Washington lifestyle.
IMO, in examining the positions of Justices we should perhaps extend that study to the level of oppossition and special galas they've been exposed to. Someone, I don't remember who, made the point the reason a number of Justices move left because they enjoy circulating in the cocktail set. I think that makes the most sense in explaining why these people abandon their principles. We need someone that will not be tempted, if possible, someone that abhors the social set.
Blackman was no conservative. He wrote the majority opinion for Roe v. Wade and later in life became opposed to the death penalty. I don't know how conservative White was, but he and Rehnquist were the dissenters in Roe v. Wade, so he may have been conservative in that aspect. He was also a law and order kind of justice.
It's all speculation, but I read somewhere that Gonzales would be 3rd...replacing Buzzi Ginsburg...assuming Rehnquist was the 2nd to leave.
As a northeast elite liberal arts grad, it's not hard at all to resist. Those people are really strange, very different priorities than what I was raised with.
I read on another thread that Ginsburg is very sick. According to this article she was in worse condition than Renquist. Her retirement is supposedly coming in November.
Gonzales will be put on hold to replace Ginsburg.
IMO, Garza wll be named. Luttig should be named
It's all speculation and only Bush, and maybe a few advisors, know his intentions. Which is why people circulating Gonzales as a reality as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.. pick are making fools of themselves. Same would be true of anyone stating for fact Bush will pick Brown, or so on. But I've seen few making that contention. They don't know, they aren't privy to Bush's internal conversations. No one that would leak is allowed in the room.
Sure, Bush could put him up. He could not nominate him as well. It's nothing but high odds gambling though.
What we DO know is that 1) Bush has appointed solid constitutionalist 2) he has a penchant to nominate minorities, women, people of faith. Not in any particular order nor all three as a requirement. From this record, imo, it is reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt his choice will be a constitutionalist and *possibly* either a minority or a woman.
Now this record could always be blown up with a bad pick, but until and if that occurs, I feel no need to doubt him. The people I'm most concerned at this time are the RINO's in the Senate because their record denotes weakness in granting the movement of the Liberal agenda forward.
Pick Brown so Alabama can return to one-party status (albeit under a different party)
I think it's more of a preemptive thing -- put the name out there just to beat the Gonzales pinata until it's no longer palatable to the base.
I think a Garza then Luttig or Roberts as Chief then Brown sequence is as likely a trifecta as any, should we be so lucky to get three.
Unfortunately, since GWB doesn't need the base anymore, he is going to reward his friends. That's life.
He was the best we could hope for given the circumstances....and he was certainly better than Gore or Kerry. But we still have a ways to go before we elect a true conservative.....then we have to elect a true conservative (like Reagan) who will govern like a conservative (even Reagan couldn't do that). This will take generations.
that's actually a great point...good analysis
It's all speculation, but I read somewhere that Gonzales would be 3rd...replacing Buzzi Ginsburg...assuming Rehnquist was the 2nd to leave.
Reading this article, I am again reminded of the insanity of where we are in America.
We are ruled by the judiciary.
And only one court matters.
And on that court you only need five votes.
And since there is only one or maybe two swing votes, that means at the end of the day....on all of the issues which divide us the most, we are ruled by one (or two) people who are not elected, unaccountable, virtually anonymous.
We all agree that it is good to have a counter which is immune to public pressure should the legislative branch go wild. And likewise the executive branch, assuming they are not held in check by Congress.
But what are we to do with the courts go wild?
Unfortunately, we are in a bizarre era where people really believe that what the Court says must be somehow right...they believe in the experts. We have abdicated self-government. And by so doing, now we have these insane speculations of who is going to fill that now vacant swing vote on the only court that matters.
Insanely, it really does matter. On some cases, that person - whoever he or she is - will be the most powerful person in the world. When he or she decides some cases (ie with that 5th vote), he or she will directly influence the lives of millions and millions of people.
Strange. But that is where you are.
Making them squeal is just icing on the cake. The real treat is that she is a bona fide conservative. She won't vote with the panty waists as often as Sandee Day
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