White flag?
 

The estate tax issue is silly. I agree it should be abolished. But if you've got enough cash that its an issue to you, you've already had a financial planner and lawyer structure an avoidance plan. Nobody just sits around with a stack of money in the bank and gets caught by the estate tax. I've never heard of it. Don't give me the family farmer/small business owner myth.

Give Peace a Chance
 

Quit being an asshole.

Give Peace a Chance
 

He can't help it. It's his nature.

Give Peace a Chance
 

So, Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King were against justice? The Quakers are servants of evil?

Interesting theory. I disagree.

I assume this is related to your previously stated position that anyone who is critical of the administration's decision to invade Iraq must logically be a supporter of continuing the reign of Saddam Hussein.

S_A_M

Give Peace a Chance
 

I was waiting for the photoshopping of Robert Byrd ddriving the bulldozer.

Give Peace a Chance
 

I know you know better than that. You've heard Daniel Carver- the jews are the devil. no way Byrd helps drive the dozer.

White flag?
 

This may show that the social conservatives and religious right are -- in the eyes of the mainstream GOP leadership and GWB -- the ugly little sisters at the fraternity house.

You'll sit around and drink beer with them, screw them a time or two when you're loaded, and you sure need them to build your float and help around the House -- but you're not going to put them up for homecoming queen.

OTOH -- who really knows with this woman?

I see the question here as being:

(a) did Bush just want to avoid a big fight and name a justice he was comfortable with; or

(b) Did Bush want to avoid a big fight with a stealth nominee who would transform the Court's jurisprudence.

S_A_M

My Theory
 

Oh my.

S_A_M

Give Peace a Chance
 

I wish you luck in this campaign. If you succeed, your next trick should be to get the sun to rise in the west a few times.

White flag?
 

In the first place, Rehnquist himself had no judicial experience when he was appointed. In fact, numerous Justices have been appointed without prior judicial experience. The only real harm in that is that there is no track record on which to politicize the appointee.

The woman was the first partner of a large Texas firm, the first woman to be elected the President of the Dallas bar, the first woman to be voted president of the Texas state bar. She's obviously a highly-accomplished lawyer.

I can guarantee that Bush knows her politics and her judicial leanings. It's just the rest of the country that doesn't and won't unless she's affirmed. Does anybody here really think that Bush would appoint someone who was not in his mold to be his personal counsel, let alone to the SC?

White flag?
 

Certainly true. I don't remember the Rehnquist nomination, but presume that he was a particularly esteemed member of the bar at the time. Here -- who knows? I don't pretend to be up to date on all of the prominent lawyers, but there are loads of people who've never heard of this woman.

Perhaps. These are all good accomplishments, to be sure, but I don't really know that this is SCOTUS material.

Harry Reid's earlier comments about wanting someone with actual litigating experience -- someone who's actually taken a deposition, tried a case, etc -- are well taken, but I didn't know he meant it to be to the exclusion of any judicial experience.

I agree with this. In some respects, I'm more concerned about a nominee whose primary attribute has been her loyalty to the president.

White flag?
 

Rehnquist received no small amount of criticism for being essentially a Republican "hack". One of the central points of opposition was that, while working for the Republican party, he had set up methods for systematically challenging black voters.

White flag?
 

I think that Harry Reid may very well have meant precisely that. As I noted earlier, one benefit of not having a judicial track record is that the nominee will be queried on her judgment, ethics, temperament, and intellect instead of what she meant in foot note five of her dissenting concurrence in California Ex. Rel. Beavis v. Butthead.

I am far more comfortable with a trial lawyer who has never put on a robe being a SC justice than I am with an academic who has never seen the inside of a courtroom (hello Scalia, Posner, et. al.).

And I agree with you that it is more disturbing to know that this is a woman who is so closely and intimately tied with the Bush administration and has such a high degree of loyalty to a man whose judgment I so completely distrust.

White flag?
 

2, but experience on one side of the bench and experience on the other are not mutually exclusive. And when a president goes to either extreme, I start to worry about his motivations. If it's "she is a brilliant, universally respected lawyer" or "he is a scholar whose views influence judges throughout the nation", that's one thing. If it's "she's a loyal devotee of the President," well, that's another.....

White flag?
 

Did either Brandeis or Warren have prior judicial experience? I believe both were heavily involved in politics and could be viewed as appointments driven by political payback or symbolism.