Sandra Day O'Connor

The private reputation as a bully has long been whispered. (It's all through Joan Biskupic's bio of Sandra Day O'Connor (S.D.O: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice)).

But Scalia wants to play that part on the world's stage. Last month he gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1256,filter.all/event_detail.aspand when impudent students in the audience baited him about Cheney's shooting accident, the justice rose to the challenge like a bar-lout, sparring with the questioners.

Now it's a speech he gave in Switzerland, aired on NPR yesterday, in which he calls the idea of trials for prisoners at Gitmo "crazy." http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode=ATC&showDate=27-Mar-2006&segNum=11&mediaPref=RM&getUnderwriting=1 Once again he does so with a red face.

One point for the intemperate justice: he understands the price of citizenship. He told the Swiss loudly that his son served in Iraq. At last-- a hawk whose own family is exposed to danger.

And another one. The NPR piece demonstrated the famous but oft-denied liberal bias in public radio. Reporter Nina Totenberg was pushing the idea that Scalia was guilty of an ethical breach for airing his views on an issue that will come before the court. There's nothing wrong with liberal bias, it's just when public radio people deny they have it that it becomes irritating. Hey, it's built in. The people who go into reporting for big blue-state institutions are liberals, almost all Democrats. They're not going on to the Supreme Court, they have to go somewhere.

Well, that didn't take long. As I started to write an item on New York's senior Senator and the new SCOTUS nominee, Judge Samuel Alito, the following popped up from Chuck:

"It is sad that the President felt he had to pick a nominee likely to divide America instead of choosing a nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor, who would unify us.

"This controversial nominee, who would make the Court less diverse and far more conservative, will get very careful scrutiny from the Senate and from the American people."

Chuck has been saying for years that he wanted a nominee whose views are known, and in this one, he got what he wanted. Alito took what wound up being the losing side in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, as clear a signal as you're going to get that he's a vote against Roe.

On the other hand, Chuck has also said recently that with the President weakened, the Democrats can beat a conservative nominee -- whether by filibuster or on a straight vote.

Sounds like we'll see.  read more »

Their "No" votes on Roberts positioned them for a hard line on a more conservative nominee.

Now Bush has nominated a loyalist, White House counsel Harriett Miers, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Do Chuck and Hillary fight the fight they'd prepared for, or claim victory and vote "Yes," arguing that the threat of a confirmation fight did the trick in warding off ideologues?  read more »