Supreme Court Retirement Rumors-- And Then There Were Three???

Okay, didn't post it earlier today, with that "fantasy threat" (according to the BBC) unfolding in London, but I suppose you've heard:

Rehnquist is planning on announcing his retirement. He may have intended to do so today, but delayed due to the "fictitious war" of terrorists against the civilized.

Unbelievably, now comes rumors that Rehnquist and that liberal alte kacher Stevens are both announcing their retirements tomorrow.

If true, this adds some strange geometries to the nomination process.

One conservative, one arch-liberal, one woman who just could never seem to be able to actually, you know, judge a case -- does Bush take two and give back one, or nominate a liberal, a conservative, and a moderate, or -- crikey! -- go for the brass ring and try for three conservatives?

Thanks to Allah.

Suggestion: Gonzalez for O'Connor. The first Hispanic justice. Whoop-de-doo. I don't think this is going to get us any Hispanic votes, and, more importantly, I don't think Hispanics think this will get us Hispanic votes.

But Bush seems very keen on him. They're "friends."

(One thing that does in fact make me question Bush's intellect is his childish faith in his "friends." For God's sake. I gave up on believing so absolutely in "friends" after high school when I discovered that "Best Friends Forever" meant no such thing in practice. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered people were "just being nice" with all that "K.I.T." stuff.)

A real conservative, like Brown or Owens, for Rehnquist. Hell, make her CJ, the first female CJ in history. Doesn't matter much. It's prestigious but the CJ gets no extra votes; it's mostly an administrative thing. (Although the CJ does get to assign who writes the opinion when voting with the majority.)

A real conservative as CJ, and a woman at that. I don't care, and neither will liberals, actually, but we'll all have to pretend we care.

And then-- to replace the archliberal crank Stevens -- appoint some libertarian.

Here's the thing-- a libertarian will be acceptable to Chuckie Schumer on the Roe issue -- the one issue liberals care about, it seems -- but will vote with us on 80% of the other issues. Except maybe on some law and order sorts of issues, but hell, we even lose Scalia a lot of time on those. (Because, you know, he actually seems to think the Constitution means what it says it means.)

I don't know if that will result in Roe v. Wade be overturned (full disclosure: as an intellectual matter I'd like to see it overturned, but as a policy and political matter I'm in no great hurry), but the court would be solidly conservative on most issues.

Even on affirmative action... because the libertarian will almost certainly not follow liberal dogma on racial quotas and preferences. Meaning we'd replace two pro-quota justices and one anti-quota justice with two anti-quota justices and one pro-quota justice.

And maybe that would appease in-your-face libertarians, and bring them closer into the political fold.

I grant you, not an ideal solution, particularly for social conservatives who put overturning Roe v. Wade as top priority.

Anyway, the politics of it are beautiful. One Hispanic, one woman, one guy who thinks you should be able to ass-rape a retarded monkey while injecting distilled cobra venom directly into your wife-slash-sister's nipple.

All the political bases covered. And Instapundit won't have to say "There's a war on" the next time the Feds raid and underground monkey sodomy-slavery ring.

And of course none of that will mean a damn thing in terms of future elections, but I'll pretend it will. Just like politicians and the media insist on doing.

posted by Ace at 06:23 AM

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