The major concern here, of course, is if Obama had the chance to replace the conservative Scalia or the centrist Anthony Kennedy. Both of them are in their early 70s and in good health. If Obama is a one term President, those seats should be fine, but there's no telling if they could last 8 years of this marxist (both would be 80 by 2016)
The ironic thing is Bush made a big deal in 2000 of being eager to appoint the first 'Hispanic justice' and never followed through, instead trying to enrich his credentials with "Hispanics" by promoting amnesty (kinda like how Ford kept hinting he's appoint the first female justice but it didn't happen until Reagan in '81).
While Bush's appointments were good, they probably wouldn't be the direction I would have taken the court. Replacing Rehnquist with Roberts just kept the same ideological tilt as before. I would have kept Roberts as the original choice to replace Sandra Day O'Conner, elevated Thomas to replace Rehnquist as C.J. (Thomas was the only baby boomer judge at the time and will probably last at least 15 years as CJ, and he'd make history as the first black CJ), put Janice Rogers Brown (of the California Supreme Court) or Raoul Cantero (of the Florida Supreme Court) to replace Thomas as Associate Justice. Ideally I'd have both of them on the court. (I like idea of elevating STATE supreme judges to the U.S. Supreme Court, in much the same way Governors often end up as President)
Of course, there is the remote possibility that Obama will attempt to appoint a person he THINKS is a hardcore socialist, only to watch that Judge morph into a DINO, as was the case when JFK appointed Byron White as a favor to organized labor. (proving once again that Ann Coulter's "facts" about a Dem president never "accidentally" appointing a conservative are false and show her ignorance of the historical record). This is possible due to the fact Obama's a lightweight and totally inexperienced, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.
Overall, I think the last 50 years has made the case that we need to look into my suggestion of letting American voters weigh in on U.S. Supreme Court judges. This, of course, is the exact opposite direction that some freepers would like to go, in that they think life would be so much better if crooked state legislatures were appointing Senators for life (it will be a cold day in hell before I let Emil Jones pick my Senators for me. We would have NEVER gotten Peter Fitzgerald in the Senate if these "conservatives" got their way and let big government made the decision)
An directly elected U.S. Supreme Court, like we have in Illinois and Texas, would be the ideal choice, though it will probably never happen as it requires a constitutional amendment. At the very least, voters should have the power of retention over the president's judicial picks, as is the case in the vast majority of American states. I am fairly certainly, however, that Republican voters would have selected better judges than Souter and Stevens. Hell, Democrat voters would probably even do a better job of vetting judges than the kind of creeps that Clinton and Obama foisted on us.
Billy, you've got to remember that the Democrats promised Dubya a civil war if he attempted to nominate anyone other than a White (and essentially male) member to the highest level courts. Their tactics were audaciously racist, because they didn't want any prominent Conservative non-Whites that might serve as national leaders. Don't you remember Miguel Estrada ? The leftist groups told Durbin to stop him at all costs because of what he represented. I personally wish Dubya had more aggressively supported non-Caucasian Conservative appointments and called the Democrats out as racists.
"I would have kept Roberts as the original choice to replace Sandra Day O'Conner, elevated Thomas to replace Rehnquist as C.J. (Thomas was the only baby boomer judge at the time and will probably last at least 15 years as CJ, and he'd make history as the first black CJ), put Janice Rogers Brown (of the California Supreme Court) or Raoul Cantero (of the Florida Supreme Court) to replace Thomas as Associate Justice. Ideally I'd have both of them on the court. (I like idea of elevating STATE supreme judges to the U.S. Supreme Court, in much the same way Governors often end up as President)"
Brown at least managed to get elevated to a federal judgeship, not without considerable difficulty. Cantero resigned his position on the FL court a few months ago and apparently went back to the private sector (Crist replaced him with a Caucasian, the former Congressman Charlie Canady, an excellent choice, albeit there are now no Hispanics on the FL court of either party). Some state Justices would make good elevations to SCOTUS, but we mustn't discount existing federal judges (although I'd tend to appoint ones as young as possible. If we could get ones in their 30s, even better. They could stand to serve 50 years on the court).
Re: Elected SCOTUS
I think that is far more problematic than you would think. Let's presume they'd be elected at-large across the country for, say, 6-year terms, which would allow for 3 to be voted on every 2 years. I think the campaign process would be a nightmare having to go from coast to coast and I couldn't even picture Clarence Thomas on the court under those circumstances. You'd have hundreds of millions of dollars spent just over a single Justice. They'd be so beholden to contributors and those "special interests" that they'd be instantly compromised once on the bench and their rulings would all be all but predictable, and not necessarily even grounded on the Constitution or rule of law. However flawed the process is now, it would be far worse under those circumstances... but...
...another suggestion would be for potential "yes" or "no" national retention votes. That way it would make the Justices accountable to a degree without having to go through the aforementioned nightmare of campaigning nationally like a President. We probably could've taken out Stevens and Ginsburg under such circumstances, but it would also depend upon whom was President at the time. Assuming they'd face a retention at the nearest election after their appointment, and then 6 years hence, Stevens would've probably been retained in 1976 less than a full year in, and perhaps could've been taken out in 1982 or 1988, and most assuredly in 1994 -- but then it would've been moot, since Clinton would've just appointed another moonbat in his place, for which we wouldn't have been able to dump until at least 2002.
After having (under our state law) an unconstitutional Missouri-style selection process, where a Governor is literally forced to choose from candidates he may not even want (they're selected by an exclusive trial lawyers board, and almost always liberal Democrats, with occasionally a moderate Republican slipping in -- and our ex-RINO Governor was only given ultralib choices. Bredesen, however, tried to preempt the panel and TOLD them he wanted a specific Black nominee. They didn't like being told what to do and sent up choices that angered him, which ironically included a rational Republican. In a fit of pique, Bredesen appointed that Republican, but he didn't want to. Now our court is all-White after an old Black moonbat he was seeking to replace quit). I tend to favor (at state level) party nominees for the state Supremes as opposed to up or down approvals. But we rarely toss judges. We did toss out a judge that Gov. McWherter installed who was a horrible liberal that was led around by the Black moonbat, a White lady. But she was only replaced by another liberal woman that was scarcely different that our RINO was forced to pick. The Black moonbat was the one that most especially needed tossing, but he survived an attempt to bounce him off the court when the media and the rodents made it a racial issue and accused the GOP of the usual garbage. But the guy WAS a terrible judge. Pro-criminal and pathologically anti-capital punishment no matter how heinous the crime. I denounced when they named our new local justice building downtown after him (although perhaps it was poetic justice being named for him. The building has been plagued with all sorts of problems since its completion).
Aside from Roe was Byron White really a decent Justice?