RE: Chief Justice William Rehnquist might retire today
Unless Rehnquist, by some miracle, hangs on for three more years, Bush is going to be faced with an excellent opportunity. Most presidencies could be defined by what he does with that opportunity. Of course with 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, that will overshadow anything that Bush does. Still, this is a major opportunity for him, if he takes advantage of it.
The opportunity to appoint two justices isn't that unique . . . you have to go back to Carter to find a president who didn't have the opportunity, and Reagan appointed three justices. But the opportunity to swing the politics of the court is indeed slim.
When you consider how many 5-4 votes, with O'Conner siding with the majority, we've had in the past several years, this could really flip the recent trend in the Supreme Court, IF Bush pacifies his conservative base and appoints two conservatives. This is the very reason I voted for Bush the second time around; we all knew that Rehnquist would retire. That was pretty much a given. What we weren't so sure about is whether O'Conner would retire, but we knew it was a possibility. Now what will Bush do? Given his track record, I figure he'll match outgoing with incoming - appoint a conservative to replace Rehnquist, appoint a moderate to replace O'Conner. My hope is that he takes advantage of the opportunity. Of course the Democrats are going to pitch a fit and do everything in their power to stop him, but the Republicans have the majority in the Senate, and it's a solid enough advantage that it isn't likely to change in next fall's midterms. So let the fights be waged. The Republicans should emerge the victors. But, of course, the first move is in Bush's hands. He can lead his party into the battle, or he can run up the white flag of surrender (compromise) and nothing will change on the Supreme Court.
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