Now that the right has Borked as good as the left, speculation is intense as to whom Bush will pick next. If you can believe the press, and why wouldn’t you, Bush is still demanding a woman. The demise of poor Harriet suggests some other implicit requirements such as previous history as a judge, discernible opinions, and conservative street cred. The guessing game is then a process of elimination. There are a limited number of conservative female judges to choose from and some make better nominees than others.
Several prominent women justices have been eyed by right wing groups for years for a day such as this. They fought to get these judges lower court appointments so they would be greased and ready when it came time to pick a nominee. The two main women of this group are Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown.
Brown is automatically eliminated from the get go because the woman is nuts. She has an inspiring personal story (daughter of share croppers, first in her family to blah blah blah) but her legal opinions sound cartoonishly far right making her defeat too easy.
Bush will not totally bow to the religious right – just appease them. Boy they are having a hey-day credit claiming for Miers withdrawal. While it is true they didn’t like her much, neither did anyone else! On the eve of her withdrawal Cheney, sent as Bush’s representative, met with Senate leaders of both parties who assured him she had nowhere near enough votes to be confirmed. Now, groups like CWFA never liked Miers but they didn’t formally call for her withdrawal until the afternoon of the day before it was made official. If these people received assurances priors to Miers being announced as the nominee by Bush, (as we now know they did!) is it too much of a stretch to assume they were let down easy about her withdrawal before the rest of us knew as well? So, they quickly posted on their web sites grand-standing calls for her withdrawal mere hours before it actually occurred so they could look like they call the shots.
But Bush does not like taking orders, even from schnarky interest groups, and appearing to cow tow too timidly to those people may seem like a repeat of the Terry Shiavo debacle. So, Bush will walk the tightrope of nominating someone they like without selecting from the list of names they specifically supplied him. No pressure. The no. 1 name the AFA, CWFA, FRC, and the rest of the alphabet soup of religious conservatives are demanding is Priscilla Owen. For this reason alone, I think she’s out.
That leaves two Ediths and a Mahoney. Edith Jones and Edith Brown Clement are both sitting judges but haven’t been for very long and there is no traceable constitutional philosophy among either. The last thing Bush wants to do is roll the dice with another stealthy nominee and the first criticism about either Edith would be a lack of a known record. They’re out.
Bush will deploy the Roberts strategy in female form. Bush’s pick of Roberts was ingenious politically. He was conservative enough to quell the right wingers but not such an ideologue as to trigger a confirmation war. And he was so qualified, so smart, so well educated and respected that it made it difficult for anyone in either party to object. Maureen Mahoney is similar. She has a conservative track record but she’s not one of the current judges hand picked and shepherded by the religious right. Like Roberts, she clerked for Rehnquist and has previously worked with Republican presidents and Ken Starr. However, she is not a darling of the right because in 2002 she defended the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program before the Supreme Court and boldly bucked conservative criticism of such a stance.
The Bush administration is having a tough time. With the dismissal of Scooter Libby, the pending action against Rover, the indictment of prominent allies, the bungling of Katrina, and the rampant cronyism, the Bush administration has zero political capital. What does one do in such predicaments? Run to your base. There is reason to believe that Bush will throw some red meat to the most rabid of his supporters in an attempt to rebuild from the ground up. But, last I checked, Rove was still employed and if he has any say in the process, that won’t happen. While appealing to old friends may boost morale, it is unlikely it will help anything else. With no numerical mandate Bush needs to reach out, not retreat to the trenches. If a firebrand right winger is sent up, the beleaguered president will get pummeled in the next few months just in time for more indictments and Nov. 2006.
Au Contraire, Congress’ numbers are down overall. Polls show low approval ratings for both houses, both parties. SDO’C offered her resignation six months ago and we’ve already burned through one nominee. If the Democrats mount some attack and a protracted fight stretches into this term, the public is likely to hold the opposition party more accountable. The perception going into the midterm elections is that the Democrats unfairly kept a seat from being filled on the Supreme Court. If they need to fight, and if they’re going to fight, it better be for good reasons.
This brings me back to my original prediction. Maureen is the winner! If she is not the nominee we may never know why. But the White House has already “leaked” all over town that prominent women were tapped prior to Miers and politely declined. Politically she’s the administration's best hope and, frankly, not a bad choice.
My prediction for the nominee: Maureen Mahoney. If I am wrong this week I preemptively request limits to laughing in my face.
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