These remarks from Bush are going to cause a veritable s***-storm:
President Bush said today that his nominee for the Supreme Court may be someone who has never sat on the bench before.
“Would I be willing to consider people who had never been a judge?” Mr. Bush said. “And the answer is, ‘You bet.’ ”
Mr. Bush said he had had “a very good meeting” on Tuesday with Senate leaders of both parties, who had encouraged him to look beyond the federal judiciary for candidates to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
“We’re considering all kind of people,” Mr. Bush said after a Cabinet meeting today. “Judges, non-judges. Laura gave me some good advice yesterday, which is to consider women. Which, of course I’m doing.” First Lady Laura Bush said she would be pleased if the president nominated a woman to fill Justice O’Connor’s seat.
This is not going to fly well with those who want to do opposition research within the Democratic party, and it sure as hell is not going to amuse the right, who are pretty adamant about “no surprises:”
On the left, People for the American Way blasted 400,000 e-mails to supporters, urging them to contact U.S. senators and demand a moderate replacement.
On the right, the conservative Family Research Council hired three new lobbyists to work over senators during the confirmation battle. Progress for America blitzed cyberspace, sending an e-mail ad that reached 8.7 million inboxes, decrying the smear tactics Democrats plan to use against the eventual nominee. The ad was sent just 45 minutes following Mrs. O’Connor’s announcement…
Mark W. Smith, a legal expert and author of the New York Times bestseller The Official Handbook of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, says Justice O’Connor’s departure gives the Republican president a unique opportunity to change the court’s direction. Nominating and confirming a true conservative would give the court four committed conservatives, four committed liberals, and one left-leaning moderate in Justice Anthony Kennedy.
But he warns that Republican presidents have historically been very poor at choosing justices to strictly interpret the Constitution. After all, seven of the nine justices were Republican nominees. It was President Gerald Ford who nominated noted liberal Justice John Paul Stevens to the court. Mr. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, put left-leaning David Souter on the bench.
“The history shows conservatives have got to do a better job in picking judges,” Mr. Smith said. “If you pick anybody that you have any doubts about