With the death of William Rehnquist this past Saturday, the Supreme Court is at a turning point. Two seats are now open and President Bush is gearing up for a grueling fight over his nominees. Within 36 hours of Rehnquist's death, John Roberts was nominated to replace him as Chief Justice.
The attacks on Roberts so far have been defended by the notion that he is a moderate, which, since he was originally replacing Sandra Day O'Connor, who was a swing vote on the court, is a natural defense.
The question now is: How can a man who two months ago was supposedly moderate be considered a replacement for Rehnquist, who was one of the most conservative on the court?
The truth is that John Roberts is extremely conservative and comes from the mold of Rehnquist; I wish to fight his nomination as Chief Justice because of this. However, who Bush nominates to replace O'Connor will change the face of the Supreme Court for years to come.
By replacing a swing vote with a staunch conservative such as Priscilla Owen or Edith Brown Clement, Bush will have successfully moved the court far to the right, and made an imprint that will be felt for years to come. O'Connor must be replaced with a justice similar to herself-moderate.
Here is where the Republican spin machine starts revving its engine. President Bush will claim that he has already given a moderate nominee, John Roberts, and will then proceed to nominate someone on the far-right of the political spectrum. The notion that John Roberts is a moderate is completely false. Roberts was the conservative nominee all along and this was proven when he was nominated to succeed William Rehnquist.
With a Watergate-esque approval rating of around 40-percent, President Bush has very little political capital to work with. Add to that this past summer's scandals, which still need to be dealt with, and the federal government's utter failure to respond quickly to hurricane Katrina, and you can see that this nomination will be very difficult for him.
If Bush goes with a moderate choice, he has a chance to boost his poll numbers and also help the image of Republicans in the midterm elections in 2006, but at the same time anger the far-right. If he does not nominate a moderate, another standstill in the Senate, such as that created by the nuclear option debate in May, will occur and congressional chaos will ensue.
Either way someone wins and someone loses, but for the sake of the future of our country I hope President Bush comes to his senses and nominates someone in the mold of O'Connor to replace her. If not, the court will move considerably to the right which would lead to a possible overturn of Roe v. Wade and a disappearance of the right to privacy.
