My Thoughts on the Next SCOTUS Nominee

First off, thanks to Mark to inviting me to post. I'll try to stop over from my own blog on occasion to offer some insights. I'll probably stay confined to the politics and the current state of religion as opposed to more philosophical items I sometimes post on my home blog. In any event, it's a pleasure to be here.

I'm with Mark that the next SCOTUS nominee will not be the current Attorney General for pretty much the same reasons Mark has outlined. I'll generalize it further to say this though--the President is not looking for a fight and Gonzalez will be a huge fight from both sides of the aisle (I also think he's pretty underqualified and undistinguished but that's another story). Republicans tend to think he is a closet moderate in the vein of Justice Kennedy and Democrats will harp, as they should, on the torture memos. Not what you're looking for if you're the President at this point. New Orleans, Iraq, and finishing off Roberts' confirmation is more than enough for him to worry about (especially because I suspect the President harbors delusions of trying to roll back the estate tax, make his income tax cuts permanent, and some kind of social security reform, all of which are terrible ideas and are political non-starters for the most part).

So, who will the President nominate? He will try to do two things with his next choice. First, nominate a woman to keep the gender "balance" of the Court at its current state and he will try to push a subtly more originalist judge through the door. It won't be a lightning rod like Judge Janice Rogers Brown. A Justice Clement anyone?