Obama's SCOTUS short list down to at least 4

[usregimechange]

Officials declined to say how many people in total the president has interviewed. They have said 10 people are being considered, but the true short list has fewer names. At least four people are on that list, an administration official said: Judges Garland and Thomas, Ms. Kagan, and Diane Wood, a federal appellate judge in Chicago.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608104575218490879908792.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

So... of the four confirmed names... who would you most prefer?



Judge Merrick B. Garland, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Nominated by William J. Clinton on January 7, 1997
57 Years Old
J.D. Harvard Law School
Jewish



Judge Diane Pamela Wood, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Nominated by William J. Clinton on March 31, 1995
59 Years Old
J.D. University of Texas School of Law
Protestant



Elena Kagan, US Solicitor General
Nominated by by Barack Obama on January 5, 2009
50 Years Old
J.D. Harvard Law School
Jewish



Judge Sidney Thomas, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Nominated by William J. Clinton on July 19, 1995
56 Years Old
J.D. University of Montana School of Law
Protestant (not confirmed)

[Mass]

1. Hopefully, it will be a woman. It is time to make the court look like America.

Another woman would make it closer to that.

[usregimechange]

6. I agree, hoping Kagan gets it and mostly trusting Obama after Sotomayor but...

I would need the information that Obama is reading right now.

[Sebastian Doyle]

7. If making the court look like America was even a consideration

There would be someone actually LIBERAL on the list.

Kagan is about as "liberal" as Chimpy.

Wood is probably the best of that lukewarm list, I suppose. Overall though, it's a sad day when a Democratic appointee will push the Supreme Court further to the right. :evilfrown:

[BlooInBloo]

2. I'm fine with any of them. I still wish that lady from Stanford conlaw was in the mix though.

[usregimechange]

3. You and me both but no such luck

[ruggerson]

4. Gates sent her a letter telling her she was not under consideration

[JackRiddler]

10. Gates?

Which Gates? Pentagon Gates, from Bush?

[Retrograde]

5. Thomas - I want a Westerner

Then Wood, Kagan and Garland, in that order.

[JackRiddler]

8. "At LEAST four people..."

So since this is definitely a matter in which I have NO influence, and no one does except one guy who can do whatever he likes, I will stick with the dream:

[usregimechange]

9. I suspect Biden is whispering in his ear... a fact of which concerns me not at all

[Tx4obama]

26. Warren at 60 yrs old is just too old.

Obama's strategy needs to be to pick someone that will be on the court for a very long time.
Warren was one of the oldest possibilities talked about before she was taken off of the short-list.
If Obama picks someone closer to 50 then it would be a better choice.

I'm still rooting for Harold Koh, I'm hoping that he will be a surprise pick :)

[old mark]

11. Kagan. I want a Jewish female and an eastern college - Harvard is good.

She has experience at the federal level and I think would be a good choice.

mark

[JackRiddler]

27. What the hell kind of criteria are those?

Don't you care what they stand for? What their record is?

[Arkana]

12. I like what I've heard of Sid Thomas--he sounds like a liberal judge with a very

social libertarian streak.

[B Calm]

13. Jonathan Turley would have been my first choice.

But.. I see he's not even on the short list. . .

[geek tragedy]

14. Ugh. Turkey pushed the 'dumb Latina' talking points

about Sotomayor and was a big proponent of impeaching Clinton. Obama will certainly pick someone better.

[scubadude]

15. The case against Elena Kagan

Be careful what you ask for...

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/13/kagan/index.html

The prospect that Stevens will be replaced by Elena Kagan has led to the growing perception that Barack Obama will actually take a Supreme Court dominated by Justices Scalia (Reagan), Thomas (Bush 41), Roberts (Bush 43), Alito (Bush 43) and Kennedy (Reagan) and move it further to the Right. Joe Lieberman went on Fox News this weekend to celebrate the prospect that "President Obama may nominate someone in fact who makes the Court slightly less liberal," while The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus predicted: "The court that convenes on the first Monday in October is apt to be more conservative than the one we have now." Last Friday, I made the same argument: that replacing Stevens with Kagan risks moving the Court to the Right, perhaps substantially to the Right (by "the Right," I mean: closer to the Bush/Cheney vision of Government and the Thomas/Scalia approach to executive power and law). ...


...there are serious red flags raised by what little there is to examine in her record. I've written twice before about that record -- here (last paragraph) and here -- and won't repeat those points. Among the most disturbing aspects is her testimony during her Solicitor General confirmation hearing, where she agreed wholeheartedly with Lindsey Graham about the rightness of the core Bush/Cheney Terrorism template: namely, that the entire world is a "battlefield," that "war" is the proper legal framework for analyzing all matters relating to Terrorism, and the Government can therefore indefinitely detain anyone captured on that "battlefield" (i.e., anywhere in the world without geographical limits) who is accused (but not proven) to be an "enemy combatant."

Those views, along with her steadfast work as Solicitor General defending the Bush/Cheney approach to executive power, have caused even the farthest Right elements -- from Bill Kristol to former Bush OLC lawyer Ed Whelan -- to praise her rather lavishly. Contrast all of that with Justice Stevens' unbroken record of opposing Bush's sweeping claims of executive power every chance he got, at times even more vigorously than the rest of the Court's "liberal wing," and the risks of a Kagan nomination are self-evident.

The only other real glimpse into Kagan's judicial philosophy and views of executive power came in a June, 2001 Harvard Law Review article (.pdf), in which she defended Bill Clinton's then-unprecedented attempt to control administrative agencies by expanding a variety of tools of presidential power that were originally created by the Reagan administration (some of which Kagan helped build while working in the Clinton White House), all as a means of overcoming a GOP-controlled Congress. This view that it is the President rather than Congress with primary control over administrative agencies became known, before it was distorted by the Bush era, as the theory of the "unitary executive." I don't want to over-simplify this issue or draw too much importance from it; what Kagan was defending back then was many universes away from what Bush/Cheney ended up doing, and her defense of Clinton's theories of administrative power was nuanced, complex and explicitly cognizant of the Constitutional questions they might raise. ---

Much more here: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/13/kagan/index.html


Scuba

[usregimechange]

18. I know but that SCOTUS blog piece seemed fairly convincing as well

[The Stranger]

23. Please not Elena Kagan. DIane Wood would be a far superior pick.

[RedCloud]

16. Well, where are the Atheists, Buddhists and Nudists?

Mighty slim pickings.

[msongs]

17. no more hope that a liberal/progressive might be considered? nt

[ChicagoSuz219]

19. He was hanging out w/Jennifer Granholm today...

...wonder if he 'interviewed' her... ??

[usregimechange]

20. Another DUer was wondering the same, he may have...

[Arkana]

22. Nah, they probably just played Halo all day.

[TexasProgresive]

21. She's not on the list but, Oh! such delicious irony

Anita Hill. Since she's not I'll go with Kagan.

[usregimechange]

24. to keep thomas in line...

[usregimechange]

25. Its Kagan by a nose

[TheKentuckian]

28. Wood (too long in the tooth for my taste but..), Thomas, and tie

Garland and Kagan.

I don't get the Kagan love she seems far too off from a civil libertarian to be on the Supreme Court except for a Republican pick with Democratic control of the Senate by a huge majority. Garland strikes as a mealymouthed centrist that would have a tough time putting big money in it's place but maybe he's just trying to avoid waves.

[truebrit71]

29. Someone very liberal and someone very young...

...other than I have no litmus test...

[Statistical]

30. Woods because Tiger has been cleaing up his act lately. n/t

[Crabby Appleton]

31. kick

[usregimechange]

32. We need a tie breaker vote!

[defendandprotect]

33. Elizabeth Holtzman would be perfect .. . . . and I need more info on these people . . .!!