What would happen if Obama nominated a liberal version of Thomas, Scalia, Alito or Roberts?

Of course we know the answer. The right would be apoplectic, and the media would give total cover to anyone who accused Obama of being polarizing. That being said, would it really be so wrong? Why should Obama have to appoint a "centrist" judge, while both Bushes and Reagan got away with appointing total ideologues?

When we lose Stevens, will there really be a liberal left on the Court? Breyer is an expert on antitrust and administrative law. Sotomayor is far from a liberal on certain issues (i.e., crime). And Ginsberg is such a fierce liberal that she was championed by Orrin Hatch when she was first nominated. Seriously, when do we get our version of Scalia et al?

How could we 'know the answer,' when 'we' can't even understand the question?

....and carry out its wishes, because all correctly-oriented cadres know that the organs of the State, like the Supreme Court, serve the Party, and not the other way round, because the Party, and only the Party, is the Vanguard of the Revolution.

from whom a 'liberal' might take direction?

...talk of a 'liberal Roberts' is per se absurd.

Never, that's when.

Compromise is what is expected of "rational" people.

Bat shit crazy right wing ideologues are given leeway for some bizarre reason.

When, of course, it should be exactly the opposite.

Why do people keep thinking he is a liberal? Not once has he ever claimed to be one.

Cheese Whiz already!

and the Rethugs would say he was too liberal.

:eyes:
rocktivity

Or maybe a practical demonstration of the flaws with the Second Amendment in the Supreme chambers....

n/t

Conservatives outnumber liberals in this country two to one (40% conservative, 20% liberal, 36% moderate according to Gallup).

Those are totally misleading numbers. What someone calls themself is not necessarily what they really are, and I'm convinced that most people in this country have no idea what those labels mean. There's a reason why almost 70% of the country backs a public option. Why huge majorities support Social Security and Medicare. Why a plurality supports abortion rights. The fact is, we are a liberal country -- regardless of the fact that people like to call themselves conservative.

Perfectly legitimate statistics.

labels are misleading, hence such numbers are misleading.

The country/the people are MODERATE, CENTRIST, and if/when conversations are held with so-called teabaggers, my assertion will be confirmed. There's so much propaganda that we appear to be topsy-turvy, and the propaganda serves corps/repugs. It developed to serve government.

'Journalist Walter Lippmann, in Public Opinion (1922) also worked on the subject, as well as the American advertising pioneer Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freud, early in the 20th century.<18>

During World War I, Lippmann and Bernays were hired by then United States President, Woodrow Wilson, to participate in the Creel Commission, the mission of which was to sway popular opinion in favor of entering the war, on the side of the United Kingdom. The Creel Commission provided themes for speeches by "four-minute men" at public functions, and also encouraged censorship of the American press. The Commission was so unpopular that after the war, Congress closed it down without providing funding to organize and archive its papers.

The war propaganda campaign of Lippmann and Bernays produced within six months such an intense anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress American business (and Adolf Hitler, among others) with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion. Bernays coined the terms "group mind" and "engineering consent", important concepts in practical propaganda work. The file Century of the Self by Adam Curtis documents the immense influence of these ideas on public relations and politics throughout the last century.

The current public relations industry is a direct outgrowth of Lippmann's and Bernays' work and is still used extensively by the United States government. For the first half of the 20th century Bernays and Lippmann themselves ran a very successful public relations firm. World War II saw continued use of propaganda as a weapon of war, both by Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the British Political Warfare Executive, as well as the United States Office of War Information.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#History

Pollsters can't really get the ideological numbers right, it's too difficult do to how people view things.

Waiter, I'd like the meat version of broccoli please.

Hey salesdude - I'd like to buy the engineless version of a car please.

Although Obama is a smart man and clearly knows the liberal side of things is the best thing for this country he is a politician at heart and so will always try to cut things down the middle and in this era the middle is really center-right. So his pick will always, always be what people view as center but to the world over it is really center-right....at best!

The "not liberal enough" game is as predictable as it is repetitious.

Ted Kennedy was tight with Orrin Hatch--anyone going to question Teddy's liberal cred?

Expect a moderate.

Seriously. All that would happen by nominating someone else with the personality of the 4 neocon activist judges on the SCOTUS would be total gridlock and a losing streak for liberals and moderates. They are ideologues with asshole personalities -- a so-called "liberal version of Thomas, Scalia, Alito or Roberts" would guarantee that nothing gets done.

We need someone who has enough interpersonal skills to know when and how to compromise to get the job done. Obama's centrist instincts seem to be spot on -- he can get a youngish judge through the process, someone with few red flags, someone with the potential to grow in the job over time as the best of them eventually do. I think he has proven to be a fairly good judge of people that way so far.

Hekate

appoint a liberal.

in such legacy determining things like SCOTUS picks politics should take a back seat imho....

not to mention obama will be safe till 2012 and there is not sane aboveboard challenger on that side of the aisle....


put a liberal on there to challenge alito for decades....


can't wait till thomas or scalia retires, hopefully in obama's 2nd term where we can get a stranglehold on the court

are many out there who would qualify.
There are not that many really liberal judges, period.

mark

But I would interpret the original question to mean, what would happen if Obama nominates a left-leaning partisan, and the definition of partisan is "party first." Party before country; that's partisanship in a nutshell. And what would happen if the President nominates a lefty partisan to try to balance all the righty partisans? I know one thing: I'd be damn angry with him.

We need fewer partisans in the SCOTUS, not an attempt to counterbalance partisans.

:nuke:


Well, actually, their heads would do this with ANYBODY Obama nominates:

:nuke:

there's not a damn thing LIBERAL about the Obama Administration. :(