Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement this morning, setting off more speculation than you can shake a stick at. President Bush did nothing to quench that speculation when he spoke at the White House, saying that he would nominate a justice who would "faithfully interpret" the laws of the land.

The laundry list of names includes recent Circuit court nominee Janice Rogers Brown, Edith Brown Clement, Edith Hollan Jones and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Washington sources are telling me not to be surprised if President Bush doesn't wait until after the August recess to name a potential successor. But then again, if I had a dollar for every time a "source" gave me information that wasn't quite correct, I'd be a very rich man indeed.

That being said, I don't think that anyone wants to toss the August recess -- August in DC can be very sultry indeed.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Spector (R-PA) said that he thought there wouldn't be a filibuster against whatever nominee the President selects, counting on the "Gang of 14" compromise that he was a part of during last month's judiciary fight. I'm not as confident.

With O'Connor having been one of the major swing votes on the Court, I'm fully expecting a partisan bloodbath -- especially if the President selects a strong conservative, as is expected.

Stay tuned. This ought to make for interesting television if nothing else. After all, the news networks have nothing else to talk about now that Michael Jackson's trial is over.

Posted by: mhking at 06:46 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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