That is a major problem.
Coulter is wrong when she says that liberal Democrat presidents never "accidentally" appointed a conservative. They'd have fewer opportunities than Republicans in recent decades to make appointments, but they've had their own slip ups. Kennedy appointed Byron White as a favor to big labor (he was a lifelong Democrat and big DNC donor) and the guy turned out to be a closet conservative. Woodrow Wilson appointed James Clark McReynolds because he was some nasty southern Jew-hating bigot like himse, but McReynolds turned out to be a staunch conservative who was one of the "four horsemen" who consistently struck down FDR's socialist New Deal legislation. However, the big difference here is that NONE of the RAT judges "started out" as reliable liberals and drifted more and more to right over their years on the court, but plenty of GOP appointments have drifted the other way. There's that old saying from Winston Churchill about a man being a bleeding heart liberal at 20 and a staunch conservative at age 40. With federal judges, it's the opposite. They may have a track record as faithful conservatives at age 40, but be freakin' marxists by the time they're 75. Some of the prominent examples are Justices John Paul Stevens and Harry Blackmun.
One of the reasons I suspect is that they keep appointing federal appellate court judges in about 70-80% of the SCOTUS appointments. These guys get drunk on power with their lifetime federal jobs and believe they're on an mission to solve social ills in America. I don't know why we do this, we're one of the few countries in the world that chooses Governors instead of federal legislators as President most of the time because we want someone from "outside Washington", so why do we want a professional federal official to serve on SCOTUS? They should elevate more judges from state supreme courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, IMO. Of course, David Souter (former NH Supreme Court justice) is an notable example against my argument, but we don't have a lot of state supreme court judges to compare him to. If I had been in Bush's shoes, I would have elevated Clarance Thomas to CJ and named Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul G. Cantero to replace Thomas as associate justice.
>> The POTUS election being held this November is the most important POTUS election in the nation's history, IMO. This is war and the time to not treat politics as such is long gone. <<
I've been hearing this "most important Presidential election of our lifetime" stuff since I first voted in 2000, so it's worn thin. I'm told THIS election will tip the balance of SCOTUS every election. I think even in a worst case scenario, Romney's POTUS nominees wouldn't be as bad as Obama, but even if Romney makes a sincere effort to appoint a reliable conservative justice, we're left with the "evolving" problem. I really think the only solution is to amend the constitution and have a fully elected SCOTUS like we have on the state level in several states, but since that's unlikely to ever become law, a compromise solution might be to continue letting the President appoint judges with Senate approval, but give Americans (depending on what federal judicial circuit they live in) the power of retention. That way a turncoat appointed in 2005 could kicked out of his SCOTUS seat in 2015, and so on. Any Republican appointee who "evolved" would face ramifications from voters, especially if they're from a conservative region.
>> “Ann Coulter when she was on the warpath against Roberts and insisted he was “another Souter”. ..” I wonder what Roberts did to make her against him. This week is the first time I saw Roberts go left. <<
Good question. Between this and the AZ decision, I wouldn't place Roberts as "another Souter" yet, but if he keeps this up, he'll certainly be another Sandra Day O'Connor at best. What caused Coulter to go into attack mode against him in 2005 is beyond me. His past history as a member of the Federalist Society, Rehnquist clerk, etc. was certainly better than anything we had from Souter, which were just "assurances" from some blue-blooeded New Hampshire RINOs that he was a "good Republican". But a lot of conservatives backed Charlie Crist for Governor of Florida in 2006 and could have never predicted him becoming a turncoat liberal, either. Fortunately for me, Coulter's groupies would be rubbing this in my face and saying "I told you so", but they've quieted down ever since their hero hitched her wagon to GOProud and Mitt Romney in the GOP primaries.
The fact that you have to go back 50 years to find a Democrat SCOTUS appointee who ended up being more conservative than the president thought proves the point. As I posted a few months ago, only one of the eight Dem SCOTUS appointees since 1952 have ended up being more conservative than the president thought (Byron White, appointed by JFK in 1962), while 9 of the 18 GOP appointees since 1952 have been more liberal than the president thought (I’m not counting Roberts there, since his record was about what was expected until yesterday). That’s a 12.5% disappointment rate for Democrats and a 50% disappointment rate for Republicans. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2849024/posts?page=108#108
As for naming governors or state judges instead of federal appelate judges, I don’t think that would improve our odds of picking conservatives who won’t move to the Dark Side. Earl Warren was a governor, and (as you mentioned) Souter was a state judge (although he did serve a while as a federal Circuit judge as well). It seems to me that picking someone with no federal judicial experience makes it likelier that we’d miss a red flag that would have come up during his service as a federal judge (or during the prior confirmation hearing). Then again, I think that U.S. Senators with legal backgrounds and who have served in the Judiciary Committee could make good SCOTUS nominees, and if Ted Cruz is elected to the Senate from Texas I’d like to see him in the Court some day (Sen. Mike Lee of UT could be a good candidate down the line as well).
LOL
Every-time I am told that we will all die (the end of the USA) if Romney loses I recall being told we will all die if McCain loses in 2008. In fact I remember being told we will all die if the Republican House passes a debt limit extension. Talk about 9 lives.