TAXES...SADDAM...SOUTER...:

No, not Gonzales! (Robert Novak, June 27, 2005, Townhall)

[S]ources report Rehnquist is not ready to resign and that O'Connor is readying the way for a return to Arizona with her invalid husband. While Bush would consider replacing one of the court's two women with its first Hispanic justice, neither Roberts nor Luttig for O'Connor would be politically correct.

Accordingly, White House judge-hunters are looking for a woman. They have interviewed Appellate Judge Edith Brown Clement (5th Circuit, New Orleans), a conservative who flies under the radar. She was confirmed as a Louisiana district judge in 1991, seven weeks after her nomination by the first President Bush, and was confirmed as an appellate judge in 2001, two and a half months after George W. Bush named her.

Clement would be subject to far more scrutiny as a Supreme Court nominee. So would any other conservative named by Bush, though Democrats may have exhausted scrutinizing Gonzales. The president must choose between a fierce confirmation fight or the alienation of his political base.

Considering how hard the President has worked to avoid his father's mistakes, you have to assume he's asked Mr. Gonzales whether he'd vote to overturn Roe.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 27, 2005 8:30 AM