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April 5, 2010
SCOTUS short-list speculation as Justice Stevens talks of retirement
As highlighted in all the links here at How Appealing, it is time once again to crank up the speculation stories about when exactly Justice Stevens will retire and who President Obama might nominate to replace him. Given that Tom Goldstein has already predicted that current SG Elena Kagan will get the post, that's the smart money bet. But, especially because I will be off-line most of today, I am eager to hear the readers of this blog discuss the next possible SCOTUS transition (ideally with a sentencing spin).
Here are some of my "classic" short-list posts from earlier SCOTUS transition periods:
- Insider myopia and the diverse benefits of a short bench
- Does SCOTUS need a trial judge?
- Developing a SCOTUS short list of district court judges
- Brave New Justice and sentencing issues
April 5, 2010 at 10:19 AM | Permalink
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Comments
I respect Tom's opinion but I think that Kagan would be both a political and professional mistake. Politically because she doesn't really get the administration anywhere; it doesn't appease any powerful interest group. Professionally because in my own opinion she as completely failed to impress as SG.
I would like to see a non-lawyer on the bench but I don't have any hope that is actually going to happen.
Posted by: Daniel | Apr 5, 2010 1:37:55 PM
I think Diane Wood would be a much smarter pick than Elena Kagan. She's no Stevens right now, but she has the potential to be in 10 years.
Plus, it would be nice to finally have a non-Ivy League appointee.
Posted by: Res ipsa | Apr 5, 2010 3:51:53 PM
Diane Wood = guaranteed filibuster.
Posted by: JC | Apr 5, 2010 4:32:22 PM
Personally, I think he should put Goodwin Liu right up there -- skipping the Ninth Circuit -- so there will be no remaining doubt (if there is doubt now) about what this administration is all about, other than limitless debt and letting the mullahs get The Bomb.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 5, 2010 5:32:15 PM
Bill, that's right: a conspiracy to run up the debt and let Iran get the bomb: you and Limbaugh and Coulter must drink the same Kool-Aid--and you tout yourself as having been a fair and clear-minded prosecutor? Give me a break.
Posted by: anon 13 | Apr 5, 2010 6:39:23 PM
anon 13 --
So you're saying he's HAS NOT run up the debt but HAS taken effective action to stop Iran from getting the bomb?? And that would be.........?
I don't "tout" myself as anything, but if I did, I'd "tout" myself as using my real name, rather than slinging mud from behind your curtain of anonymity.
Of course you can raise the curtain anytime. Care to?
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 5, 2010 7:20:25 PM
Not to threadjack but I agree with Bill. The problem is that the same thing would be happening on a McCain watch or a Romney presidency. The great thing about being out of power is you can always claim you would do something different knowing in your heart it's a big fat whopping lie.
Posted by: Daniel | Apr 5, 2010 7:55:42 PM
Daniel --
The extent of the borrowing would be far less. The Pelosi/Reid gigantic healthcare entitlement would have been vetoed and the veto would have been sustained. The treatment of Israel would be vastly different and friendlier. The military option with Iran would still be on the table, instead of sub silentio having been taken off, effectively giving Iran a free hand.
You nailed it, though, about campaigning from out of power. Obama campaigned as a post-partisan who would reach across the aisle. This was, indeed, "a big fat whopping lie." He is the most polarizing and divisine president since Nixon.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 5, 2010 10:30:31 PM
But more importantly--at least to our torture cheerleader Otis, His Royal Highness Comrade Crown Prince Hussein (who is a black man very near the white women, I might add) doesn't advocate torture. . .
Posted by: Mark # 1 | Apr 6, 2010 12:38:14 AM
"Personally, I think he should put Goodwin Liu right up there -- skipping the Ninth Circuit -- so there will be no remaining doubt (if there is doubt now) about what this administration is all about, other than limitless debt and letting the mullahs get The Bomb."
So Ken Starr and Akhil Amar are profoundly misguided, then? Click Here
Posted by: JC | Apr 6, 2010 12:57:35 AM
bill: "He is the most polarizing and divisine president since Nixon."
me: so even partisan republicans are forgetting that dubya ever happened? :P
Posted by: virginia | Apr 6, 2010 9:42:10 AM
Ginny. It's not just that. It the sad fact that the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties are differences in degree and not of kind. Even Bill implicitly admits this when he talks about "less debt" and a "friendlier" politics towards Israel. The only question is whether we are to be plagued by 10,000 evils or merely 9999 with each of the parties arguing that it is the other who will add one more evil to the equation. That's what we have come to as a society.
Posted by: Daniel | Apr 6, 2010 12:45:35 PM
Mr. Terror Cheerleader --
"But more importantly--at least to our torture cheerleader Otis, His Royal Highness Comrade Crown Prince Hussein (who is a black man very near the white women, I might add) doesn't advocate torture. . ."
Ordinarily I think your posts are erroneous at best, but I can't say that about this one, since I have no clue what you are talking about.
I think your Farsi lessons at the Iranian/American Friendship Club meetings are starting to confuse you.
P.S. Confused as you are, I notice you don't contradict a single word I wrote to Daniel.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 6, 2010 3:23:13 PM
Ginny --
"...even partisan republicans are forgetting that dubya ever happened?"
Obama's problem (said problem being that his job approval rating has fallen from 70% 14 months ago to 44% now, even in the Democrat-friendly CBS poll) is that independents HAVEN'T forgotten that he pulled a bait-and-switch on them.
Obama's other problem is that he can't run against Bush forever. Indeed it's already pretty much petered out with the public. At some point, you have to take responsibility for the state of the country on your watch. He might as well do it, because the electorate will do it for him if he doesn't, and because he looks weaker and weaker the more he tries to say, like a seven year-old, "It was JOHNNIE'S fault!!!"
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 6, 2010 3:40:02 PM
personaly i think they sould visit the nearest ZOO and grab the first money they see...it would be smarter than any of this bunch.....
as for Madam Kagan....i still think she's a TRAITOR to her oath of office and needs an opening through her EMPTY head.
Posted by: rodsmith | Apr 7, 2010 10:31:27 AM
Because I don't consider your "thoughts" to be of serious enough content to merit anything except contempt; much less any type of serious response. Just as I don't hold serious conversations with 2-year olds throwing tantrums or mentally-challenged persons, I don't hold serious conversations with those who advocate torture.
Posted by: Mark # 1 | Apr 7, 2010 11:09:36 AM
Marky --
1. I have yet to see you give a serious and considered answer to ANYONE who posts here.
2. I would be worried if I earned anything BUT contempt from a man who cheers on mass murder by urging that terrorists be encouraged to clam up about their future plans, no matter how imminent and ruthless.
3. And let's get this clear. It's not torture you oppose; it's ANY coercive means of interrogation that would have a serious chance of getting the intelligence we need.
4. The judges before whom I appeared for many years, and who vindicated the positions I was arguing more than a hundred times in published and unpublished opinions, would be amused to hear that the arguments they adpoted had been advanced by a "mentally challenged" person.
Oh, and your professional record is............what?
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 7, 2010 4:50:45 PM
rodsmith --
You alone continue to be worth the price of admission here.
I have a lot of problems with Ms. Kagan, starting with the fact that, a time of war against terrorism, she barred military recruiters from Harvard Law on the pretext that they were "discriminatory" for following (as the law required them to do) the policy announced by Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton. Congress outlawed (on pain of loss of federal funding for the entire university) her egregious action in the Solomon Amendment, which was unanimously upheld by the Supremes four years ago.
With all that said, I must confess to no little smiling at your remark that the former Dean at Harvard Law has an "EMPTEY head." I respectfully dissent. A head full of bad ideas is anything but empty.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 7, 2010 6:24:35 PM
1) Maybe a more thorough search is in order;
2) "24" is a fictional television show;
3) see response above at 2; and
4) WTF does this have to do with anything I posted?
Posted by: Mark # 1 | Apr 8, 2010 2:33:30 PM
Mark # 1 --
Is there some reason you cannot address me directly? It's common courtesy. Are you not aware of that? The sincerity and strength of your feelings do not exempt you from normal manners practiced by adults. There are people on this blog who disagree with me every bit as much as you do (John K and George to give two of several examples), but who conduct themselves with dignity and a decent respect for opposing viewpoints. There is no reason you cannot do the same -- except that, out of bad temper and a cocksure certainty of your own superiority, you choose not to.
Rudeness is not a hallmark of virtue. Can it. As you full well know, you couldn't possibly get away with it at a public debate where you'd be stripped of the anonimity you cling to here.
I will nonetheless answer the one question you asked. My pointing to my litigating record as an Assistant US Attorney, and asking about your litigating record (if any), was in direct response to your statement that you didn't refute one of my answers because, to quote you verbatim, "I don't hold serious conversations with 2-year olds throwing tantrums or mentally-challenged persons..."
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 8, 2010 8:27:37 PM
