ConfirmThem

Well said and very true. The long term future of the Supreme Court and Circuit Courts is on the line in this election. It's way beyond comprehension how any serious person on this site could fail to fully support Senator McCain against either Clinton(s) or Obama.

The time for hammering McCain on Gang of 14 or Jim Haynes was during the primary. The primary is effectively over.

The bottom line is McCain is so far and away superior to the dems on judges that this should be an automatic McCain vote for everyone on this site.

Any further sniping will be disappointing.

Should not even be a discussion at all. Obama has specifically said multiple times he wants judges that are, essentially, in the Reinhardt mold, and Hillary certainly thinks Breyer is too conservative.

Everyone should take tonight & the weekend to rend garments & gnash teeth while drunkenly cursing McCain's faults, along with Mitt & Fred's moronic campaigns, and then sullenly get with the program Monday morning.

Ann Coulter's "Suicide bomber" strategy is just simply the most insane thing I've ever heard of. Hilly & Barry make Slick Willie look like Tricky Dick. McCain's nomination is the direct result of all the failings of the past seven years. Live & learn.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

Coulter apparently gave some speech today. I read a comment somewhere that indicated Coulter said she would support McCain if Romney was the VP? Does anyone know if this is accurate? McCain clearly is not going to pick Romney as VP, but if he picks the likes of Mark Sanford -- who is more conservative and consistent than Romney -- I don't see how she couldn't support him.

I myself am not concerned about Coulter's views, but if she's writing her columns and showing up on Foxnews all the time, she may depress conservative support to an extent. Coulter turns phrases well enough, but she's shockingly politically unsophisticated if she thinks Hillary is to the right of McCain.

Also, I can only laugh about these arguments that we can either have four years of Democratic failure or four years of McCain failure. What conservative is so arrogant as to think the Dems are going to be abject failures? Bill Clinton was decent from an objective standpoint. Just about every Dem FDR and beyond was, except Carter.

I enclose the list of the ages of the justices as of January 2013 and January 2017 (from Bench Memos):

Justice Stevens: 92, 96
Justice Ginsburg: 79, 83
Justice Scalia: 76, 80
Justice Kennedy: 76, 80
Justice Breyer: 74, 78
Justice Souter: 73, 77
Justice Thomas: 64, 68
Justice Alito: 62, 66
Chief Justice Roberts: 57, 62

My initial reaction (aside from Stevens) was . . . gosh, not that old, even after two terms. As for Justice Stevens, let's not forget that his brother was still a practicing attorney in Florida at the age of 93. My guess is that, even if McCain is elected, he has no more than an even money chance to replace even one justice in his first term. The liberals in particular will just serve another four years and wait him out. So even if McCain wins in 2008, he may have to get re-elected just to replace a justice. Which raises the question, who thinks the GOP will win four staight Presidential elections for the first time since McKinley-Roosevelt-Taft?
Ah well, I guess you just hope for the best.

Youo may be correct, but if the Dems win then all of the liberals will quit and be replaced with 50 year olds. WE just have to keep winning.

Hearing are scheduled for this month. Judges we got judges?

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=3076

plus one on the circuit level

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=3130

Nothing on Judges actually being voted on yet

More dangerous than Coulter's idiocy is Rush Limbaugh's recent harangues. I love Rush and have listened to him for years, but he's way off on this. He said McCain would essentially be no different than Clinton or Obama as far as conservatives are concerned. This blindly and dangerously overlooks one of the most fundamentally important and conservative powers a president has, which is to appoint federal judges. Rush has to know this, but is ignoring it. If he truly believes McCain will be no different on judges than Hilliary or Obama, then perhaps Rush is not as astute as I've always thought he was. Even so-called moderate conservatives at the district court and circuit court of appeals levels from McCain would be far better than the leftist activists we would see from Clinton or Obama. And I believe McCain would not stock the federal courts with moderates, but would act similarly to Bush.

This issue alone is reason enough to support McCain, and if Rush, Hannity, Coulter, Levin, Ingraham, and the others don't see it or aren't honest enough to acknowledge it, then we should stop listening to them.

have made it clear they'll support the GOP nominee.

While I understand there's no way Huckabee can garner 80 per cent plus of the post Super Tues. delegates (see Rove's white board), on Sat. at least McCain's nowhere near the 40% of delegates needed to lock up the nomination either. Virginia will be interesting. McCain will probably do well in MD. And other states too. But for today, at least, McCain's not hitting the numbers he needs to in order to get the nomination.

I wonder if Huckabee's 1191 comment includes super delegates or not. Pressure on him could get pretty intense as McCain nears that number.

Also interesting is how Romney's Sat. votes aren't being shown at times on the cable networks, esp. Fox News Network.

Nor any mention tonight of his squeaking past McCain in the CPAC straw poll.

Another intersting note--if no one achieves 50% of the vote in Louisiana (Huck's currently at 47%), then all the delegates from that state go to the national convention as uncommitted. Wonder who picks those delegates.

Is Romney picking up a few delegates today? I notice not all the cable news networks are reporting Romneys percentages.

If McCain doesn't hit 1,191 without super delegates, does Hcuk go to the convention? Does Romney get to be the one who puts McCain over the top? I can't imagine Huckabee giving his to McCain in a two man race! Hmmmmmm.

Are you that confident that Scalia and Kennedy will hang on to 76? 80? Even if McCain doesn't get to replace any of the liberals, he can keep Scalia's seat for the nest 20 years and maybe Kennedy's. He'll get to put another 25-30 appeals judges. I think the odds are at least 50-50 that one of the liberals goes, either voulntarily or involuntarily during the next four years.

Scalia would of course hang on until a Republican gains control of the White House. He would never allow an ardent liberal to replace his version of originalism with a living constitution type. On the other hand, I don't think Kennedy cares who holds the White House. I think he's brazen enough to believe he could influence the choice of Hillary or Obama.

As to the point about Rush, I couldn't agree more. In a previous thread I made my case as to why I believe Rush wants a McCain loss. I won't rehash it here except to say Rush is less concerned with actual governance than he is with his power over the conservative movement. He wants to lead the government in exile over the next few years. He wants the next group of nominees to kiss his ring. If that means the loss of judgeships, so be it. He would rather have the issue to rail against than the imperfect (in his mind) result.

As a dittohead, the last month of his show has been brutal.