Barely out of his first quarter as Commander in Chief, President Obama now gets to appoint a Supreme Court Justice. Justice Souter, after 18 years of siding against the Constitution, is retiring.
My initial thought was, “Big deal. So a liberal judge is retiring and will be replaced by another liberal judge, appointed by a liberal president.”
I wasn’t alone in thinking that either.
Gina Cobb wrote:
Despite having been a Republican appointee, Justice Souter has been a reliable vote for the left on the Supreme Court. Obama will replace one leftist justice with another. Could be worse.
Great cartoon on that page also. Be sure to check it out.
Polipundit writes:
Bright side, I am sure that this former Bush appointee will not be replaced by much worse.
True also. We”l take a look at who might be considered for the post. I’m sure everyone on the list is currently on the phone with their accountants to get all their back taxes paid up.
But first, I need to address my initial thought. It is true that there probably won’t be much of a change, but there could have been. As Ed Morrissey writes, “had we fielded a Republican candidate who could have beaten Obama (assuming anyone could), we might have gotten real change on the court — or perhaps Souter would have just postponed his retirement.”
Also, Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy writes (H/T: Jillian Bandes):
So long as the rest of the Court remains the same as today, nothing will change. However, if Obama is then able to replace even one of the five more conservative justices, the balance of power would become very different than it would have been had Souter been replaced by a more conservative justice than himself. What would have been a 5-4 conservative majority will become a 5-4 liberal one. Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, is 73 and could eventually be replaced by a liberal Obama appointee – especially if Obama wins reelection in 2012. Moreover, Souter’s replacement will likely serve for decades to come. So Scalia’s possible replacement by an Obama appointee is just one of many events that could happen during the tenure of Souter’s successor that could make his or her ideology extremely important.
We have to consider the long term, folks.
So, who ar the possible candidates for the job? Gateway Pundit says failed Michigan governor Jennifer Grandholm may be one.
Michelle Malkin names Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood. She has bios on each and advised conservatives to “gird your loins.”
The HuffPo builds on Malkin’s picks and adds Seth Waxman, Harold Koh, Teresa Wynn Roseborough, Leah Ward Sears and Kathleen Sullivan and William Fletcher.
Time says that white men need not apply. Not the first time I have heard that from this administration.
