Bloodless Coup

Gah! Rehnquist is in the hospital with cancer!

So Joshua (or anyone else), are there any names on this list that you particularly like or dislike? Out of the Kerry list I'm most interested in Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit and Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit - http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/wood-d/

I don't know much about Pete Benavides of the 5th (though I tend to see very positive adjectives used to modify references to him), but I'm also interested in him as a possible choice, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Kathleen Sullivan and Walter Dellinger.

There isn't really a single name I'm happy with on the Bush list, though I guess relatively speaking Judge Roberts and Larry Thompson seem the least scary.

geez oh man that's a big question. frankly, i see the potential for a long period of republican rule from which kerry might be a brief (if welcome) respite, so i've gotta like those candidates who are young, confirmable, and who have the best liberal credentials that can fly (which pretty much means white men are out; the diversity card will be huge in selling a liberal candidate to the public and thus to the senate).

by these indices, sotomayor is probably the best of the bunch. wood and sullivan also -- although wood might be the stronger of the two, given her international law and antitrust foci. dellinger is out; he's too old. benavides is maybe not out-of-hand out, but still, i'm not sure.

truth be told, an honest answer would require more research than i can do right now. but sotomayor is a superstar, and young, and brilliant. she gets my vote for the first opening in a kerry admin. trading -- say -- rehnquist for sotomayor would bring a tear to justice stevens' eye. and mine. and we need a good, long-term liberal on the court so that poor stevens can retire confident that his torch will be held high, even if his own seat is filled by someone more moderate (again, assuming a kerry presidency).

Well, it strikes me that there is going to be heavy pressure brought to bear for the next vacancy to go to an Hispanic, so ... Chief Justice Sotomayor has a great ring to it. And if the alternative is Chief Justice Garza (though I expected that if Rehnquist had retired in the 1st Bush term that Wilkinson would have been nominated to replace him) ... yikes!!!

yeah, and that's why a liberal-under-the-cover-of-hispanic-background is crucial: just as the GOP tried to sell the Pickering (was it?) filibuster as an anti-catholic gesture, so will the senate minority democrats (assuming) be able to burn the GOP as anti-hispanic if they don't come up with really credible reasons to not confirm sotomayor . . . and i'm not sure there's enough ammo against her. just calling her a liberal won't carry the day. nor will calling her an activist (wilkinson, anyone?).

of course, pronouncing "Madame Chief Justice Sotomay-OR" would baffle supreme court litigants for decades.

If she'd give up the fucking Pirates of Penzance stripes on the robes, I would personally design a web-based pronunciation tutor for the confused.

now now binky, the stripes are Three-Penny Opera.

but yes, no stripes would be nice.

and just hope she doesn't start writing in verse, as a certain jurist near to my heart has been known to do.

I stand corrected. :)

Uh, I believe Binky is closer to the truth - I'm under the impression that the robes were inspired by a Gilbert and Sullivan show. But I think it was Iolanthe, not Pirates.

But wherever he got the idea, they should be retired in his memory when he leaves the bench.

i stand corrected.

should have just waited for your correction in the first instance, armand. and i call myself a lawyer.

And I call myself a guy who used to usher for the local Gilbert and Sullivan society when I was in high school. Well, I don't call myself that - but I did do it (for the free tickets).

So, in reading the CSPAN piece, does this mean the fairies have taken over the supreme court?

thing is, i had the gilbert and sullivan thing in my head when i said it derived from the TPO. and here i am thinking, "brecht, gilbert and sullivan, brecht, gilbert and sullivan . . . ." i should have done my research before getting all snarky with binky.