Obama's first SCOTUS pick

[ChuckF]

NPR sez that Souter is stepping down. Implications for the court?

I think Stephen Maturin should replace him btw, and only a little bit for the lulz.

[Qingdai]

I think Stephen Maturin should get to pick him, but as funny as it would be to hear him go off on Thomas, I'd prefer him to keep better company.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

I think Stephen Maturin should replace him btw, and only a little bit for the lulz.

Thank you, Chuck, but I don't want the job unless they go back to wearing powdered wigs.

Originally Posted by Qingdai

I think Stephen Maturin should get to pick him, but as funny as it would be to hear him go off on Thomas, I'd prefer him to keep better company.

Thank you, Qingdai, but the "keep better company" ship done sailed back in July 2004 when I signed up for membership at this here forum.

It's just as well that I won't be getting the job. Were it otherwise, Thomas' presence might well necessitate a return to the Old School practice of justices calling one another "My Brother" in their opinions.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

It's just as well that I won't be getting the job. Were it otherwise, Thomas' presence might well necessitate a return to the Old School practice of justices calling one another "My Brother" in their opinions.

Are you familiar with this dish-washer invention, My Brother? What a device! This one has a pubic hair on it.

[Stephen Maturin]

Good times. I'm already regretting my decision to withdraw from consideration. How could anyone call himself a true lulzfan while passing up a chance to parody the legendary High Tech Lynching speech in the very same venue where Thomas originally delivered it?

[livius drusus]

Hail and farewell.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Thank you, Chuck, but I don't want the job unless they go back to wearing powdered wigs.

Do you want them to wear powdered wigs, or do you just wanna wear one yourself?

I'm pretty sure you could wear one yourself if you wanted to.

[D. Scarlatti]

I'm looking forward to the conservative backlash of unintentionally comic bitterness and resentment. Souter, from what I understand, is an extremely private, self-effacing character, so the personal attacks are especially amusing. Compared to Scalia and Thomas, at least, whose public personae are, respectively, that of a pompous gasbag and a paranoid windbag.

[LadyShea]

I've never really heard Souters name except in a list of justices. He must not make much noise. Why is he stepping down?

[D. Scarlatti]

He hates D.C. and wants to go back to living like a hermit in the N.H. woods.

Check out his house.

He should get a weed whacker and a can of paint as a farewell present.

[Adam]

Nailed it!

* Adam pantomimes firing six shooters and blowing smoke from the barrels

That was a lot sooner than I expected, though. What do you think the chances are that we see some crazy nookyoolar filibustering antics over whomever Obama nominates to replace him?

[ChuckF]

Should be fun since Arlen Specter is still ranking member of the Judiciary committee.

[D. Scarlatti]

What's curious is Obama has already nominated three judges to the circuit courts of appeals. One of them, David Hamilton, has attended two hearings so far in the Senate. Republicans "boycotted" the first one and at the second one on Wednesday, only one Republican (Dingfod's man, Tom Coburn) turned up.

One of the other judges had a hearing Wednesday as well, and his most vocal critic was Russ Feingold.

[D. Scarlatti]

I have it on good authority that our own CaDan is supporting the nomination of one Eugene Volokh.

[D. Scarlatti]

I guess this guy is out of the running.

P.S. That's what counts as a "racy video"?

[Adam]

isn't there a beer commercial that's essentially identical to that "racy video"?

[rigorist]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

I have it on good authority that our own CaDan is supporting the nomination of one Eugene Volokh.

Not a bad choice. Libertarian, but not a crazed wackjob like some of the other Conspirators. Seems to have a pretty calm demeanor. Wrote a commercial command interpreter for mini computers when he was in his teens (MPEX).

[D. Scarlatti]

I would like to see him nominate Mark Tushnet. I think that would really confound the Republicans.

(Although it ain't going to happen.)

[D. Scarlatti]

Chief Judge Steele has nothing on the Ninth Circuit's Alex Kozinski, who was archiving, among other delights, a video of a pantsless man getting chased around a barnyard by a notably tumescent donkey.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

Chief Judge Steele has nothing on the Ninth Circuit's Alex Kozinski, who was archiving, among other delights, a video of a pantsless man getting chased around a barnyard by a notably tumescent donkey.

I hate those ivory tower intellectuals.

[D. Scarlatti]

Excellent piece here.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Judge Kozinski FTW!

[Stephen Maturin]

There's a shitload of speculation going on out there. Elena Kagan is a reasonably safe choice, seeing as how she's already been through and survived the confirmation process in connection with her current job as Solicitor General.

Leah Sears, Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, was the first woman to get elected to a contested statewide office in that state. She's also the first African-American woman in the country to win the top job on a state supreme court. She's leaving the GSC in June.

Judge Sonia Sotomayer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was nominated to a federal trial court by a Republican (Bush I) and to the court of appeals by a Democrat (Clinton). The court of appeals confirmation fight got pretty ugly, if memory serves.

Diane Wood is a federal court of appeals judge and lawprof with an exceptionally impressive resume, but you can almost smell the conservatives shitting themselves over the prospect of this liberal judicial activist sodomite sympathizing pro-abort serving on the Supreme Court.

Hell, there's even some speculation about Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. That would be a savage confirmation fight right there.

Originally Posted by erimir

Do you want them to wear powdered wigs, or do you just wanna wear one yourself?

It's no good unless everyone has to do it. A single justice wearing a powdered wig would look stupid and priggish. It'd be like Felix Frankfurter never left.

[rigorist]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

He hates D.C. and wants to go back to living like a hermit in the N.H. woods.

Check out his house.

He should get a weed whacker and a can of paint as a farewell present.

Jesus. Norman Bates was on the Court for what? Twenty years?

[Stephen Maturin]

That being true, there's no reason for Obama to refrain from nominating Slobberin'. That would engender quite the lively jurisprudential debate over the relative merits of "living" fappage v. "dead" fappage.