Ashcroft & Evans resign

He can do the country the most good as Chief Justice.

I flat disagree. He's Earl Warren all over again. Warren was governor of California, looked good on paper, and then he went absolutely nuts on the bench.

Giuliani's a scrambler, very ambitious and media-conscious, it's been noticed about him since his days as U.S. Attorney, when he was prosecuting small fry like Dennis Levine -- before he tripped over someone who was in bed with Ivan Boesky, who led him to Michael Milken.

Rudy Giuliani has a lot of good points, but you don't give him the Supreme Court unless you like his politics, and his politics are liberal. You've self-identified as a "Scoop Jackson" Democrat -- a 50's Democrat, IOW, an Adlai guy. Fine. Earl Warren was cut from pretty much that cloth, and I'm sure he suited you, too -- but the legal positivism that he, Frankfurter, Brennan, and Douglas indulged in did violence to the Constitution both in letter and in spirit. He was actually worse than Owen Roberts, who swung like a rusty gate for Roosevelt on Social Security and then carried FDR's nightsoil in the Pearl Harbor investigations.

I'd rather eat a bushel of deadly nightshade than have a card-carrying social liberal like Rudy Giuliani handling the assignments and log-rolling in Justices' chambers like Brennan used to do. He'd be a disaster for conservatives -- almost as bad as having Mario Cuomo in there, whom many people wanted The Rapist to nominate, not for his one opinion, but because they wanted his ability to cadge votes. That's another reason liberals are scum, by the way.

SG Olsen or Associate Justice Scalia would be much better IMHO -- pace the detraction of Scalia. Who cares what liberal justices or the media think about the Chief Justice? He's up there to do a job, not make points with the liberals on the DC social circuit. That's Souter's job.

I got news for you. Cadging votes is in the job description for Chief Justice. That's why Scalia is out. It's the CJ's job to turn pluralities and small majorities into big majorities. On anything.

This is critically important for the whole legal system - rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court need to be understandable, final and predictable.

You are so far gone on the social stuff that you can't see anything else. Like the national interest.

It's the CJ's job to turn pluralities and small majorities into big majorities. On anything.

Never heard of it -- except when we're talking about liberal, legal-positivist Justices.

You are so far gone on the social stuff that you can't see anything else. Like the national interest.

I see a man who'll make a great liberal Chief Justice and vote down the line on social and constitutional issues with Souter, Ginzburg, Kennedy and Breyer.

With his liberal background, I can't assume Giuliani is a friend of either the Tenth Amendment or RKBA, both of which I care about a lot -- and I noticed your attempt to separate the concerns I articulate from "the national interest". Got a tape-recording of Earl Warren up your sleeve?

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