A tepid replacement for Souter (and Stevens and Ginsburg) would maintain a rightwing status quo on the Supreme Court; as University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone told the Times: "The right side is very bold and very conservative. The liberal side is not bold. They are incrementalists. They don't set the agenda."
But if Obama were to break his habit and replace retiring liberals with a bold progressive or two, Professor Stone argues it would seriously change things: "A really powerful, articulate, moral, passionate voice on the left would really change the dynamic on the Court. It would pull the other justices who are inclined to be sympathetic to that voice in that direction. It would shift the center of the discussion--about what's the middle."
With a Democratic-dominated Senate, President Obama is free to make a bold choice. I'm not holding my breath.
Especially after seeing this clueless comment from Senate Judiciary chair Pat Leahy, who's gone over possible Souter replacements with Obama: "I don't like to see an ideologue of either the right or the left. I don't think we're going to have one."
Jeff Cohen is founder of the media watch group FAIR, former TV pundit, and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
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