ConfirmThem

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this link should work for those who happen by before the link in the body gets updated

mostly stuff we've already heard who've followed JCG and her book at all, but still fun to listen to.

she says Owen is less likely, and JRB and Sykes are the only names she mentions, though she again says she doesn't expect another vacancy. also confirms Elena Kagan would be at the top of Dem shortlists.

click

I guess we won't have to hold our breath about retirements and picking new judges then :-)

Signature disclaimer: I'm not currently paid by any campaign, but I am available. Current preferences for President: 1) F.Thompson; 2) Romney; 3) Guiliani; 4) McCain; 5) Gingrich

Using Crawford's criteria of "no more white males," the likely Dem SCOTUS nominees could be:

1) Karen Nelson Moore - 6th Circuit Judge - Blackmun law clerk - born 1948

2) Sonia Sotomayor - 2nd Circuit Judge - born 1954

3) Diane Pamela Wood - 7th Circuit Judge - Blackmun law clerk - born 1950

4) Elena Kagan - former D.C. Circuit nominee - T. Marshall law clerk - born 1960

I excluded Kathleen Sullivan from my list of proposed Dem SCOTUS nominees because I think she blew her chances when she failed the California Bar Exam and had to retake it.

Kim McLane Wardlaw http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=2501

and

Sandra Lynch http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=1447

She is very dangerous. Wood is brilliant, and an excellent writer to boot. She reminds me a great deal of Scalia in that she always thinking ahead to the next case, and planting seeds in one case to take root in another. Lord help us if she gets on the Court.

Of course she's brilliant, she - like another brilliant jurist, Edith Jones - is a TexasEx. Hook'em! :-)

she'd be 59 by 2009 (though if a Dem is elected, I expect Ginsburg to step down in 2009 and she was 60 when appointed), and I have to think Sotomayor at 55 would be more attractive for a first pick as a Hispanic, if Bush doesn't get a 3rd pick and put a Hispanic up first, and Kagan even moreso being just under 50 by that time. I think they are by far the most likely pair for Hillary especially (a NY and MA pair to match her husband's, interestingly)

also, if Bush gets to replace Souter or Stevens and puts up a woman, a non-Ginsburg replacement would not need to be a woman for the next president, be it Dem or Repub, though there'd still be a decent probability.

we really need to get a pro-life woman on the court...

Nice cartoon. Funny how Stevens is missing, tho (kinda like Osama!)

The only vacancies in the near future appear to be of the unexpected health variety, or RBG under DPOTUS/DSEN, tho if I were the Dems I wouldn't push Ruthie too hard on that.

Stevens has gone insane with ego. "I haven't changed; everyone else has." Oh, boy. Symptom A. He'll go out strapped to a wheelchair wearing a diaper, just like Douglas. Very sad, as he was once a much higher quality person than Wild Bill. Should be funny for us, tho, watching the Dems eagerly anticipate his retirement every year.

If the Repubs have 45+ seats in the 2009 Senate and a DPOTUS, McConnell simply must insist that the previously approved "consensus" candidates Callahan & Mahoney (and prolly Ikuta) are the only ones acceptable, if there's a vacancy.

Of course, based on history he almost certainly won't; he won't get 40 Repubs along with him if he does; and even if he does the Dems will go nuclear in an eye-blink.

If I were a DPOTUS, I'd be getting Columbia Law prof. Gillian Metzger (b. ~1965, RBG clerk) on the bench pronto. Seems to be sort of an Allison Eid of the Left.

Blackmun law clerks, LOL. Gee, anyone wonder why Harry only got more hardline on abortion, & squishier on everything else? I wonder if it was Moore or Wood who came up with the "no longer tinker with the machinery of death" line?

just as I think it would be hard to get a Thomas (and maybe Scalia) clerk on SCOTUS, we must demand the same treatment of Blackmun/Brennan clerks.

agree on Stevens. if he doesn't go this year, he'll not go until 2012 (or maybe 2013, 2012 being an election year) after he's set the record, or until he dies.

the one positive of a Rudy presidency is it might entice Souter to step down, but the negative is I don't trust him to make a good replacement.

Watch out for Wardlaw. She's very bright, very attractive, well-respected, and very liberal. On top of it, she's young and she's hispanic.

those 9th circuit Hispanic women, eh? I guess Wardlaw would be up there with Sotomayor then, though I'd give Sotomayor the edge, especially as a Ginsburg replacement, and especially for Hillary, being a "New Yorker" and all.

Lynch I believe is highly respected (in that article ranking judges from back in 2002 or so, I believe she was the top Dem judge behind Posner and Easterbrook), but she'd be in her 60s by 2009.