Open SCOTUS nominee thread

Feel free to comment here on President Bush’s announcement this evening of his choice to replace Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court. Orin Kerr is so excited about this that he’s breaking into song. Peter Baker, Fred Barbash and William Branigin report in the Washington Post that: [M]any Republican strategists are anticipating that ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Feel free to comment here on President Bush's announcement this evening of his choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. Orin Kerr is so excited about this that he's breaking into song. Peter Baker, Fred Barbash and William Branigin report in the Washington Post that:

Feel free to comment here on President Bush’s announcement this evening of his choice to replace Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court. Orin Kerr is so excited about this that he’s breaking into song. Peter Baker, Fred Barbash and William Branigin report in the Washington Post that:

[M]any Republican strategists are anticipating that his choice will be Judge Edith Clement of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals…. “I’ve heard nothing official, but it certainly does look like it,” said a Republican strategist with close ties to the White House. “The word has gone out that we should be ready today. And the signs are all pointing to Clement.”

TradeSports has Clement doing well, but I agree with Kerr that this is not terribly reliable evidence. [How do you pronounce that last name?–ed. Click here for the answer in Slate.] The extensive network of legal spies working for danieldrezner.com report that Clement might be the perfect justice to navigate the 7-10 split that is the Senate confirmation process. I’ve heard experts on both sides of the aisle praise her. Jack Balkin thinks Clement would be a shrewd political move. Over at Power Line, John Hinderaker repeates a Reuters report that Clement would receive the support of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. Andrew Sullivan has a whole bunch o’ posts up, including a link to this Legal Times story, which suggests that, “Two of the most noteworthy opinions written by Clement are in the area of criminal rights and law enforcement.” This may please The New Republic‘s William Stuntz, who argues that, “the Supreme Court’s most important job is not managing the culture wars. Regulating the never-ending war on crime is a much bigger task.” Remember, however, that George W. Bush loves — loves — to surprise the media. UPDATE: And he does — it’s Judge John Roberts from the DC Court of Appeals. Looks like John Derbyshire was wrong. For more see Stuart Buck, Peter Robinson, Glenn Reynolds, Jeffrey Rosen, and the SCOTUSblog profile. UPDATE: Listening to NPR, Jeffrey Rosen says that while no Supreme Court nominee is a slam dunk, this is pretty “dunky.”

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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