So who's going to replace Justice O'Connor on the Supreme Court? Today Robert Novak is playing up the chances of Fifth Circuit Court Judge Priscilla Owen.
"According to White House sources, Bush met secretly with Owen last week. While not decisive evidence, this was no mere get-acquainted session beginning a long exploration. The president knows and admires his fellow Texas Republican. The countervailing political pressure on Bush is to name a Hispanic American, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a Texas Republican the president knows and likes even better than he does Owen."
The latter pressure is no doubt strong indeed, and articles like this one make it clear that many conservatives will speak out in favor of the Attorney General if the president names him to the Supreme Court. It remains unclear who the president will nominate, but presuming Novak's reporting is accurate, these two names would seem to be at the top of the list at the moment.
Posted by armand at September 12, 2005 01:58 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Law and the Courtsnovak still has a job? sheesh! i thought he'd sworn his way out of one on CNN a couple of weeks back. of course, one might have thought the same about cheney's even more impetuous outburst on the senate floor a year or two back, but one would have been wrong.
i'm both betting and hoping it's gonzalez. i'll take an unknown quantity over a known nutjob any day. and while gonzalez has been bush's houseboy for a decade now, i wouldn't assume that, once bush is out of office, gonzalez will be all that terribly conservative, socially, with regard to affirmative action, or in other regards.
i see honest-to-goodness souter potential in him.
Posted by: joshua at September 12, 2005 02:31 PM | PERMALINKI don't know. That seems to be the nightmare of the James Dobson and Tony Perkins crowd, and they won't stop talking about it happening - but it seems to me that their fears are based on very little evidence. True, there is a case or two in which he wasn't as right-wing as Owen - but that does not a Souter make. Sure, I'm quite willing to think he'd be more open to affirmative action than the other potential candidate. But the Supreme Court deals with a multitude of additional issues. And I think he'll be more than a little right-wing on a lot of 'em. I mean this is the guy who's running the Bush Justice Department and use to run Bush's White House counsel's office.
Still, I'd prefer him to Owen. She scares me (more).
Posted by: Armand at September 12, 2005 02:58 PM | PERMALINK