I predict the likely outcome of this scenario, as Josh describes it, to be that Bush succumbs to the religious right and GETS both of his nominees through the court.

The cost, of course, is a bunch of bloodied and bruised Republican senators right as campaigning for '06 begins.  

Net gain in Senate for Dems: +3

Net gain in House for Dems: +7

Will that be worth it?  I say yes, as momentum for Hillary in '08, especially with the vote to overturn Roe being that much closer. 

I think it will be a more moderate conservative (Gonzales) and a rightwing judge.  The far right has challenged Bush.  It's a manhood and pride thing now.  The one thing I think we all know by now is that Bush will do what he wants to do.  He has already told the wingnuts to shut the F up.  And has already asked Leahy and Reid to consult with him on the nominees 

He needs to Dems to have any chance to get things done this term and nominating Gonzales will be, in his mind, reaching out to the dems.  He needs the 49% of the electorate who didn't vote for him to show some support...I am betting he tells the wingnuts to shove it and picks Gonzales.

I think Ed is absolutely correct. I ran into a friend this morning who is rather deeply involved in the liberal organizations working on judicial nominations who said that Rehnquist's retirement would give Bush the opportunity to name Gonzalez to one seat and a hard-right winger to another. But if you read the right-wing blogs at all, it's clear that their opposition to Gonzalez is unyielding, and its not going to be placated by having one Roe opponent (Rehnquist) replaced by another.

At the same time, it's clear that Bush absolutely wants to appoint Gonzalez, and this is the kind of thing he gets his back up about: he's the president, he gets to appoint his friends. So you've got some potentially complicated situations: potentially the right fighting one nominee while Dems fight the other, which will make the Dems seem less obstructionist. Or, you've got Bush caving and naming two wingers, which will really look like trying to pack the court.

 Interestingly, the last president to insist on appointing his friends to the Supreme Court was Lyndon Johnson, with Fortas, and then appointing his protege Homer Thornberry to replace Fortas when he tried to make Fortas chief justice.

That didn't work out so well, did it?

 My motto: Beware of Texans bearing friends.

The fundamentalist Christian part of the Cultural Right is in a bind, too. They have spent years building George W. Bush up as the long-awaited Conservative Messiah. In many fundamentalist Christian circles, pastors and other leaders have gone out of their way to make being for Bush equivalent to being for God. So, Bush has some wiggle room. Whoever he appoints, he does so as a "man of God" in the eyes of the grassroots Christian right. With so much invested in spinning him that way in Christian circles, many pastors and leaders will just have to go along for the ride or lose face in front of their congregations if he does appoint a more moderate conservative, such as Gonzales. The real howl will come from Catholics.

I realize this rumor has been floating around in wider circles than Novak's, but is anyone else slightly concerned that this might just be a test balloon leaked about by someone or other to gauge the left's probable response to simultaneous vacancies?  Publically plotting to get a moderate voice is probably a great way to give strategy away and ensure that the court will take an even harsher right turn.  I'm not so concerned about discussion here, but I could see it being potentially damaging if a strategy such as this is discussed in a higher profile setting -- amongst Senators on cable talk shows or whatever -- before a second vacancy actually opens up.

If things develop as you outlined, it doesn't have to stand. "We the people ..." outranks even the Supreme Court.

I can see this as paranoid but I can also see it as exactly the kind of political gameplay the repugs love.

When did "what's best for my party" come to equal "what's best for the country?'

LOL!  You know it's comical to me that people actually think the GOP wants to reverse Roe. 

These guys are too gutless to run on closing the borders because they don't want to jeopardize gains among Hispanics, yet people really think they're going to single-handedly give up 15-30% of their female support AND add a few million more politically-active women to the Democratic base?

Republicans don't want to overturn Roe.  They want to make Democrats defend it!  Our weak attempts to beat back judicial nominees on their abortion position has been completely ineffective AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! 

It's a ploy - a magic trick - by corporatist politicians (who occupy BOTH sides of the aisle) to fill their campaign chest with pro-birth or pro-choice money!  NARAL and Right to Life give us a big-ole fireworks show, rack in record money for their organizations, and drop bundles of donations and PAC money into the coffers of every politician who delivers a passionate speech on the Senate floor.  Meanwhile, the pro-choice/pro-birth nominee gets a hearing where he's not even credibly challenged on his pro-corporate views, is approved with bi-partisan support for a life-time term on the federal bench, where he can stick it to Joe Citizen for 10, 20, 30 or 40 years.

The confirmation hearings should be all about the Federalist views of the nominee - the pro-business views of the nominee - the anti-consumer views of the nominee.  By the end of them, every American should understand the importance of the Commerce clause.  If we were a real party of the people, we'd be hanging the nominees out to dry in the court of public opinion for their judgements against consumers and donations from/close ties to corporations.  But because Democrats need corporate money just like Republicans (a la bankrupcy bill!), and the media is owned by mega-corporations that are sued in the federal court on a daily basis, we'll get the regular song-and-dance with Roe v. Wade.

LOL!  I just realized that the second-in-command of the very organization that is actively preventing a populist uprising in the Democratic Party posted the very blog to which I'm responding.

Wake up America! 

I really don't see how the Dems would be *so* profoundly stupid as to actually talk strategy on Sunday talk shows, no matter how many confirmed or unconfirmed slots there are.  Make no mistake - Congressional Dems are looking at this in millennial terms as much as the right wing crazies are.  They know what's at stake, imo, and they won't give away the barn that easily.

I could show you cracks in any edifice if you give me more than one set of election data to evaluate.  It's the trends and history that matter.

And the divide between African-American church-goers and the most liberal social base of the Democratic Party is nothing new.  But the reason its not effective en masse is simple: African-Americans understand legalized oppression better than any ethnic group in the country.  So while there may be disagreement among the faithful, it doesn't translate into support for legislative action.  And in the context of the total platfrom of the party/candidate, the gay-rights issue is completely ineffective for the radical right.

I went into this in greater detail in a diary on Daily Kos I posted last month titled, "Blacks are Fundamentally Opposed to the Christian Coalition"

It's probably because I'm not a liberal that I have trouble with this line of reasoning.  Despite the obssession, as Ed Kilgore highlighted, of the right wing, abortion is in fact NOT the only issue.  How people can have missed that salient fact after Kelo, Grokster and the medical marijuana case, I don't know.  Gonzalez seems in all ways incompetent to me and as an idealist about The Court, I don't want an incompetent political hack sitting there for the rest of his life.




I didn't even want him as AG for 4 years, because the one cabinet position on which I generally don't subscribe to the "President's Choice" argument is that one, because it's theoretically the highest law enforcement officer in the land and should therefore have higher standards.

Maybe, but I think Bush, at least, is a hell of a lot less interested in his base than he last term.   Second term presidents do strange things.  They seem to lose the idea of accountability.  I really think it will be Gonzales. 

No way.  I totally disagree with the assertion that medical marijuana (!) is in any way on the radar of the religious right.  I work and have a degree from the largest Evangelical seminary in the world and I promise you that those who are hardline Bush supporters have the following priorities:

1. ABORTION.

2. ABORTION.

3. ABORTION.

4. WAR POLICIES/PATRIOTISM/PUBLIC CHRISTIANITY

And that's it. Any other concerns are quite distant players.  Jim Wallis, the most public of progressive evangelicals, spends most of his speaking engagements trying to talk about how "single issue" voting is way off the mark.  Which "single issue" do you think he is referring to???

Also, by #4 I mean that all of these three things tie together for evangelicals in a very complex, problematic, and yet not-very-well studied way.  I'm starting a PhD in the fall and #4 will be my focus. 

Why aren't we calling Republicans on their B.S.?  Why aren't we exposing the dichotomy of the so-called "pro-life movement"?  It is not possible to be anti-contraception and anti-abortion.  And I suggest we run ad after ad after ad in the Bible Belt until those idiots get it!