[George W. Bush]

I can just imagine the conversation at the White House: Harriet, we need to send you out there as the nominee. You’re going to get skewered for a month or so, and then you’ll withdraw, and we’ll send in Sam Alito before the opposition can reload. Then you just come back over here to the White House.

Nice try, Rick, but no cigar today.

Bush was dead serious about Harriet. He believed that we could never get a proper jurist on the Court which explains a lot about why he went with the stealth nomination of Roberts.

The way Alito sailed through and impressed everyone so much showed that we don't have to send in weak sisters to get them confirmed. A strong nominee, carefully chosen (as Alito's Italian and Catholic background was), helps confirmation tremendously.

The real great unwritten story is the full-fledged social conservative partnership between the GOP and conservative Catholic elements in America.

We Republicans have put 5 Catholics on the Court. They just all voted together on PBA, the four faithful ones reeling in the one who had gone off the pro-life reservation. This is a very Catholic thing that just happened, even if everyone is afraid to say so out loud.

I'm a militant Baptist but I'm fine with granting these justices possibly more power than any president that will be elected in my lifetime will likely hold. But maybe next time, we Republicans can find a superbly qualified Protestant or evangelical type. A little diversity on our team is a nice thing too.

[RFEngineer]

“This is a very Catholic thing that just happened, even if everyone is afraid to say so out loud.”

Loud or soft, it’s nonsense. It was just the obvious right thing to do. Supreme court justices don’t take orders from the Pope when it comes to the US Constitution.