I can honestly say I have nevr been called that before.”

Should have been a smiley face after that. I meant to put one there, but I plead a cranky 4-year old with a 101 degree fever as extenuating circumstances

“And really, the issue is that it should be obvious that any president who enjoys a majority of his party in the Senate should be able to avoid stealth.”

Agreed, although we should probably modify “majority” with the words “safe” or “solid,” as all majorities are not created equal.

The statement in the post seemed to convey the idea that this dinosaur would’nt just go away in this particular circumstance (Prez w/solid Senate majority), but in all circumstances (i.e., Prez with weak majority or even a minority). Hence my assessment of it as optimistic.

If, in the words of the administration at least, a judge is supposed to be merely an interpreter of the law, why should he have an ideology at all? If Albito is as conservative as I’m hearing, wouldn’t he represent a very very bad choice, simply because he has a strong ideology? IOW, how could he be just an interpreter if he has hardened, preconceived notions of how laws should be interpreted?

The answer shouldn’t surprise, its because judges aren’t just interpreters. No one should even think they are. By interpreting a law, you dictate how that law will be enforced and judicated in the future. And therefore you dictate the effective reality of the law. They are therefore … lawmakers.

So I say, let us treat them like lawmakers. Let the president appoint them, but give them strict term limits. Maybe 4 years. No renewal.

By doing this we’ve eliminated two problems. First the hardening of poitical lines due to the length of influence a sitting justice has. Why worry, in 5 years they’ll be gone and we’ll get our guy in there next.

Second, we’ll stop fooling ourselves that justices are just interpreters. They’re lawmakers.

There. Now if everyone just listened to that, we wouldn’t have to dominate the news for the next 2 months with this. We could actually get around to reporting stuff that is truly in need of fixing.

I can honestly say I have nevr been called that before.

It will do no such thing. It will merely demonstrate that when a Republican President has a majority in the Senate, THEN he will not need stealthy nominees.

We already know that is true post-Bork for Democrats, since neither Breyer nor R.B. Ginsburg were particularly stealthy nominees and were approved overwhelmingly.

Can Democrats mobilize against a nominee who is so clearly better on one dimension (qualifications), even if he is worse for them on the other dimension (ideology)?

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President George Bush has nominated conservative judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court — giving conservatives the kind of judge they hoped they were going to get after …