Bring it On!

As Mark Shields put it, a little sarcastically, not long ago on The Newshour, God must really love the Republicans. The first thing I heard this morning was that Chief Justice William Rehenquist had died at the age of 80. Now George W. Bush has two nominations to the Supreme Court.

So what is to be done? John Roberts will have his confirmation hearings start next week, and that will give the administration of what it's going to be like to get a new Chief Justice through the Senate. These two nominations could shift the balance of the court and, conceivably (no pun intended), overturn Roe v. Wade, so they're going to get a lot of scrutiny.

My guess is that the ideologues around Bush, and possibly Bush himself, would like to name Associate Justice Scalia to be Rehnquist's replacement. But does he have the cojones to do so in the face of what would no doubt be fight-to-the-death Democratic opposition? The nomination of Roberts indicates that Bush is not really in the mood for an ideological fight, since Roberts is the stealth candidate par excellence (although Ann Coulter pointed out, quite rightly for once, that so-called stealth candidates have a tendency to blow up in the Republicans' face). But maybe he wanted an easy win before going to the matresses over the Chief Justice nomination.

My guess is that he's not going to get it. Roberts might get in, but I don't think it's going to be a walk in the park -- not after the recess appointment of John Bolton to the U.N. That was a real insult to the Senate, and I suspect that Roberts might get a much more difficult time getting confirmed because of it.

And if Bush was stupid enough or arrogant enough to nominate Scalia for Chief Justice? Then it would most likely be clobberin' time on Capitol Hill -- it would make the Bork hearings look ike lunch at the Plaza by comparison.

This could be just what progressives need -- a great big target to organize around, the way Gingrich was in the 90s. Something to help spur the vote that will bring the Democrats back into the majority in 2006, and help them take back the White House in 2008.

So I say -- bring it on.

Tom Moran