Bush's first Supreme Court nominee

Quick thoughts on the nomination of John Roberts to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

First, this says a lot about the President: he wants a conservative whose qualifications to sit on the Supreme Court are beyond question regardless of the nominee's skin color, ethnicity, religion or sex. Roberts is one of the top Supreme Court practitioners in the country, he has argued nearly 40 cases before the Court, has served on the DC Circuit and clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist -- his qualifications are overwhelming. This again reinforces Pres. Bush as a man of principle.

Second, the president avoided the precedent of a ______ seat for a particular group or sex. Justice O'Connor will not be replaced by a woman, therefore this is not the "Woman's Seat" on the Supreme Court like the Louis Brandeis-Felix Frankfurter-Arthur Goldberg-Abe Fortas seat became the "Jewish Seat" or the Thurgood Marshall-Clarence Thomas seat is now perceived as the "African-American seat". That is good -- the President should consider race/sex/religion but pick a nominee based primarily on qualifications.

Third, Pres. Bush has set the Democrats up for a fall. They cannot legitimately filibuster Roberts because (1) he passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 14-3 when nominated for the D.C. Circuit Court; (2) he earned his appointment to the D.C. Circuit by ACCLAMATION -- that's a voice vote because there is no opposition expected. In other words, Roberts passed through the filibustering Senate for the DC Circuit appointment, therefore a filibuster by the Democrats just proves that they are trying to hijack the nomination process (which we know anyway) and that they were going to filibuster anyone the President nominated. Bad faith, pure and simple.

Good choice.