Chief Justice Rehnquist dies

Another reason Condi Rice wouldn't be as good a choice for the Supreme Court as Anita Hill is that Condi wouldn't have the same irritation value for Mr. Justice Thomas.

 

The overrated Harry S Truman.

 

He was also the last president who didn't pass the buck.

 

I am not sure Ford and Carter "passed the buck."

Interesting how history views presidents years' afterwards. HST was not that popular while in office.

Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver defeated him in the 1952 Democratic primary in New Hampshire forcing Truman to withdrew as a candidate for reelection.

in his reelection bid, Jimmy Carter, who had lower poll numbers than HST, beat Teddy Kennedy in New Hampshire and Teddy lived next door.

I do give Truman credit for supporting civil rights in light of his early KKK membership back in Missoui.

 

Boy, did I ever call that one wrong. Fortunately there's not alot of shame in that since Bush43's changing his Roberts nomination from that of replacing O'Connor, to now that of replacing Renquist while O'Connor stays on-board until yet another nominee can be named, is turning-out to be a surprise to everyone... including O'Connor.

Maybe next time an employment case which involves a more experienced and deserving employee being passed over for promotion comes before the Court, Scalia will be more sympathetic.

Then, again... maybe not.

 

Darth Vader is dead! Truly the end of an appalling era.

Maybe "appalling" is the wrong term...he wasn't as bad as Scalia; he wasn't an intellectual whore or scholarly fraud. Nor was he personally dishonest, like certain others.

But he WAS a good, if mild by today's standards, example of ideology in the wrong place. A sort of proto-Scalia, I guess.

He did seem to grow, or at least grow quieter, in the last few years.

 

Given that Roberts was initially interviewed to replace Rehnquist, this is not the least bit surpising -- and why hold three (bitter, nasty, and partisan) hearings when you can just do two.

Roberts is good choice. My bet: O'Connor's successor will be a conservative black woman.

 

female black conservative?

Somebody earlier mentioned Condi Rice.

Someone else pointed out that she's not a lawyer.

Somebody further pointed out that the constitution does not restrict judicial appointments to lawyers.

All true...

It will never happen, of course, but it IS an intriguing thought. Actually, not such an unattractive idea, really...

It's not like she's untrained in the law, at least, in legal and constitutional theory. Doesn't she have a Ph.D. in government or something? The same degree Kissinger had?

Should three years of law school REALLY be an irreduceable requirement? Why? Law school is more about representing clients than it is about judging. Judging and lawyering are really separate (though closely related) professions; can we really say that a Judge HAS to have been a lawyer? It sure isn't true in most countries in the Civil Law world (though wanna be Judges DO hold undergrad degrees in law). What is more, it is not at all uncommon for Judges to be drawn from the ranks of "office" lawyers, people who literally NEVER go to Court. (They are the RICH ones, you see.)

And maybe a nonlawyer on the Court would add credibility in the eyes of the citizenry.

Just a thought.

 

Re: female black conservative?

Rice's Ph.D. is in international relations, from the University of Denver.

But more importantly, I suspect that she'd run away from a lifetime Supreme Court nomination yelling 'no, no!' She likes international politics and she really likes the academic life. I gather that her ultimate ambition is to return to her California home and presumably to a teaching spot at Stanford, where she was very happy.

Wouldn't that contradict all your 'lawyer's lawyer' talk? (Talk about 'Darth Vader'...)

From one point of view, the law is a system, or better yet, a process. It's generalized procedure more than it's issue-specific legislation.

But the citizenry (or at least its loudest voices) aren't primarily interested in that. They want to know how a judge is going to rule on abortion (or whatever the issue is), as if the judge is a congressman in black drag.

I think that part of the reason for favoring lawyers on the bench is that lawyers think about the law itself, they make a living negotiating the process. They don't just think of the law as a set of rationalizations, as convenient easily-disposable issue-specific rhetoric whose primary importance is to justify some political end.

 

BillDayson,

You are exactly correct. Lawyers owe their first duty to the Rule of Law, which means that, as far as argument and decision are concerned, we CANNOT be held "accountable" to Congress or the electorate or anyone else. The Judiciary is not merely undemocratic; the Rule of Law means that the Judicial Branch is actually ANTI-democratic which makes them unpopular at times. Hence, leverything from relatively harmless lawyer jokes to open incitements to violence against federal Judges from members of Congress.

Every lawyer has an ethical OBLIGATION not to refuse a case or client merely because the client's position is personally repugnant. (I've often wondered how Oak Brook, St. Thomas, Liberty University and Regents deal with this ethical obligation, BTW.)

But I don't see that a well educated political scientist would necessarily NOT understand the Rule of Law.

Well, it ain't gonna happen, anyway.

 

Re: female black conservative?

A PhD in International Relations might have had a couple of undergrad Constitutional Law courses. Pretty thin qualifications for sitting on the Supreme Court.

 

I suppose so, though in a handfull of states, a law license requires even LESS classroom exposure to the law...