AN OBVIOUS TIPPING POINT...:

Moderate Is Said to Be Pick for Court (NEIL A. LEWIS, 3/16/09, NY Times)

President Obama is expected to name his first candidate to an appeals court seat this week, officials said, choosing David F. Hamilton, a highly regarded federal trial court judge from Indiana, for the appeals court in Chicago.

Judge Hamilton, who is said by lawyers to represent some of his state’s traditionally moderate strain, served as counsel to Senator Evan Bayh when Mr. Bayh was the state’s governor; he is also a nephew of former Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana.

A senior administration official said Judge Hamilton would have the support of both Mr. Bayh, a Democrat, and the state’s other senator, Richard G. Lugar, a Republican. He will be nominated for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago.

...for the UR would come if he chose a Leftwing Scalia for a Supreme Court vacancy. Publicly associating himself with even mainstream liberal legal doctrine would finalize the emerging voter recognition that he isn't who they'd convinced themselves he was.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 17, 2009 6:32 AM