Bush: Balls Of Steel And A Brain Of Straw
Posted at 11:16 am on Wednesday, September 7, 2005, in Uncategorized, and tagged bush.
Following the (sudden?) death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the president re-nominated John Roberts as Chief Justice. This was expected, despite what knowledge Chris Matthews believes he has (or had). John Roberts was very likely to sail through the confirmation process for Associate Justice, and he will more than likely find little struggle being confirmed as Chief Justice. And that may not be that bad a thing. The jury (sorry, pun) is not out on the political persuasion of John Roberts. For all the money the left is throwing (out the window) in advertisements against John Roberts’ nomination, the far right is equally buying ad time to fight against John Roberts. It has made little sense for the left to continuously use their funds to fight the inevitable. Especially since we knew a second nomination was in the near future.
The long-term political leanings of Supreme Court justices has always been difficult to predict. And without knowing any concrete facts regarding Mr. Roberts, we do know he is not a Rehnquist (a GOP-hack in his young days) or a Scalia or Thomas. Most experts (Chris Matthews aside) assume that John Roberts will not become a staunch conservative of the likes of Scalia or Thomas (although there is no way to tell) and most assume that he may end up being more Kennedy/moderate, or dare we say it, a little bit Sandra Day. (Wouldn’t that end up kicking Bush in the ass: appointing a moderate to a lifetime job as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?)
It should not have surprised anyone that Bush would renominate John Roberts as Chief Justice (and Chris Matthews should be ashamed of himself for declaring that Bush would continue pushing John Roberts as Associate and then subsequently nominate him as Chief; silly, plain silly, I tell you). There had been a lot of pressure on Bush to nominate a woman to replace Ms. O’Connor and to nominate a Latino to reflect the nation’s diversity. There was even some pseudo-pressure on Bush to nominate a moderate. Of course, Bush doesn’t yield to pressure: he nominated a man, a white man, and a strong conservative (but once again, the jury is still out on the long-term political persuasion of Roberts and even the religious-right has campaigned against him). Bush was certainly not, however, going to nominate a woman, or worse, a minority (sarcasm), to become Chief Justice; that would not have been received very well by his base (although, who knows if Clarence Thomas would have received much objection).
That being said, Bush has always seemed to make the radical choice. Whenever an opportunity of bipartisanship exists, Bush seems to stick to his far religious-right conservative base, and try to show everyone that he has balls of steel. And America has been all the worse off because of it. With that precedent, I feel that Bush will nominate another conservative as Associate Justice, despite his jokey-natured press conference hinting that the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be his choice. The far right would not like that, and would campaign hard against him; the left will hold off, if smart, and revel in the idea of a moderate justice appointed by the most far-right conservative president in generations (possibly ever). That doesn’t sound like a combination Bush would opt for. I think Bush will nominate a hard-line conservative, and fall back on Gonzales. But what do I know? (Hopefully more than Chris Matthews.) The left should hedge their (expensive) bets in fighting the eventual confirmation of Roberts and campaign hard against the next Bush nominee, because like I said, Bush has balls of steel and a brain of straw, and will nominate a far-right idealogue.
Note: I know that I have gone hard on Chris Matthews, and at times, it seemed as if I were attacking him. (Well, I am.) I feel that Matthews has lost the touch, and quite possibly, has lost all relevance politically.
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