Friday Fish Wrap: April 9, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010 at 21:33 Yikes, what a day. Everything I did at work took six times longer than it should have. I needed a bit of restorative clothes shopping after work. And then a glass of wine.
Ugh. And I have to work from home over the weekend. The good news is that I think it’ll be worth it.
Long story.
Well, the suspense over a retirement at SCOTUS is over, and Justice John Paul Stevens (age 90) has announced that he’ll be going away. The short list over at the White House, filed after the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation, can be resurrected.
Stevens, the oldest serving member of the court, didn’t move to the left so much as the rest of the court - activists all - moved like a sharp thunk of the Pacific tectonic plate to the right.
8.0 on the Richter scale.
Justice John Paul Stevens was a centrist of the old school, who found allies in conservative camps - those who could still see the full spectrum ( call it the light of day ) of political and constitutional thought undiminished by the hard right, strict interpretation of guys like Scalia. A rational, reasonable centrist in this day and age, by comparison, is a ‘liberal’. Sigh.
Here’s the short list: Judge Diane Wood ( Appeals Court), Elena Kagan (Obama’s Solicitor General), and Judge Merrick Garland ( D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals).
The question: will Obama want a concensus nominee that is an easy confirmation, or a strong voice in the wilderness for Liberals? Slipping another liberal into the court won’t exactly be a barn burner in that it won’t change the usual 5-4 split that we’ve seen.
Maven’s call:
