Given the Cheney precedent and the president's well-known loyalty to his aides, it's certainly possible the president could turn to Harriet. |
Gonzales is really the only candidate who satisfies each and every one of the president's substantive criteria. |
He is genuinely committed to diversity on the federal bench. It was explicit. He wanted his staff to find qualified women and minorities. |
He's an excellent reflection of his boss ? smart, action-oriented, tough, loyal, |
If Bush is willing to go to the mat for somebody, the odds are good that, at the end of the day, no matter how bloody the battle has been, he can get that person confirmed. |
If the Roberts confirmation is a foregone conclusion, why look like a knee-jerk obstructionist? ... Its far better to preserve the appearance of being fair-minded and try to convince the president he has a chance to get your vote if he nominates someone to your liking. It also gives you the ability to oppose the next nominee with greater credibility. |
If the Roberts' confirmation is a foregone conclusion, why look like a knee-jerk obstructionist? ... It's far better to preserve the appearance of being fair-minded and try to convince the president he has a chance to get your vote if he nominates someone to your liking. It also gives you the ability to oppose the next nominee with greater credibility. |
It addressed the elephant in the room right from the get-go. |
It's awfully hard to read the tea leaves this time. But the harder I've thought about this, the more I come back to Judge Gonzales as the most likely choice. I'm not terribly confident in that prediction but it's the one I've decided I'm making. |
It's really sad, ... that the conservative groups seem to have so little faith in the President and the Attorney General. |
My own view is that we probably will not get any of the individuals who are the very top of the Democrats' hit list, ... I think he's going to try to repeat his experience with John Roberts ? someone who can be confirmed without touching off battle royale. |
Nobody considers that a very healthy situation. You have a number of very high-profile, important cases coming this next term that, from the perspective of this administration, were decided incorrectly in the courts below. You need five justices to reverse. A 4-4 tie just means the decision below is affirmed. |
She's a very able lawyer who is the person currently charged with carrying forward the president's search for judicial conservatives, so she certainly understands what the president looks for in his nominees. I suspect she'd be confirmed quite easily. |
The case they [the justices] thought they had may not be the case they have now. |
The overall lesson of the two nominations taken together is that there is considerable safety in drawing from the very small pool of people who are universally considered qualified for appointment. |