Supreme Court Appointments

Ugh... For anyone who thoughtlessly threw away their vote on Bush, here's a taste of what the next four years are going to be like. It ain't pretty.

Here's a quote from a recent NPR report on who Bush might appoint to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist:

"SIEGEL: And what do we know about what sort of person President Bush would likely choose to replace him?

TOTENBERG: Well, first, we know because the president has told us. He has said that he wants to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of the current two most conservative members of the court, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Second, the president owes a lot to the right wing of his party, particularly social conservatives who really delivered for him last night, and those folks care mightily about Supreme Court appointments. In addition, the president has a strengthened majority in the Senate on the Republican side, and, as one Democrat put it to me today, he doesn't have the restraint of an election facing him. Indeed, even when he was in a much weaker position in 2000, when he had not gotten a majority of the vote and before 9/11, he made very conservative, one might even say in some circumstances provocative, nominations to the lower courts, and he never flinched or accepted offers of compromise from the Democrats."