General
Bush to Announce Supreme Court Nominee
President Bush’s next nominee to the Supreme Court is likely to have a strong conservative judicial record, and sources close to the White House say the leading candidates are federal appeals judges Samuel Alito and J. Michael Luttig.
Excellent. Both of these guys are on the conservative A-list. They will trigger a war of course, but we can win that easy with either of these excellent guys.
Bush worked to finalize his nomination over the weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland before returning to Washington on Sunday afternoon. Miers, who continues in her job as White House counsel, joined the president at Camp David.
That would be awkward I would think.
Anyway once the announcement is made, the game is going to be this. Liberal interest groups will trying to create an uproar around the nominee with the purpose of giving Democratic senators enough political cover to filibuster the nominee. Our job is to deny the Democrat senators the cover to go to this extraordinary step. That’s the game. So whenever you see a talking head or tv ad or whatever, remember the game, remember their objective and yours and that it’s all about whether the Dems decide to filibuster.
UPDATE
Reports just coming in: It’s Alito!
UPDATE
Looks like the gang of 14 will fall apart if the Dems try to filibuster Alito.
But Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, fired back Sunday, saying that if the Democrats staged a filibuster against Judge Alito or Judge Luttig because of their conservatism, “the filibuster will not stand.”
Mr. Graham’s warning was significant because he played a crucial role earlier this year in helping block a Republican effort to change the Senate rules - known as the nuclear option - so that Democrats could not filibuster judicial nominees. His comments on Sunday indicated that this time, he would support that rule change; Democrats have threatened to retaliate with a battle that could snarl Senate business for months.
UPDATE 8:19AM
ThinkProgress has decided that Alito is the anti-christ. That was quick, almost like they had the copy typed and ready to go…
Discussion
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[...] Remember the game. Liberals must provide political cover for 40 Democrats to filibuster. Conservatives must deny them that cover. Looking at it realistically I think that this memo goes quite far in providing to the Democrats the motive and cover they need if they really do want to filibuster. In their hearts they really don’t want to filibuster but they are driven right now by the wacky base and so who knows? After scanning the usual suspects at this juncture I don’t see any huge drive to use this memo as a sledgehammer against recalcitrant Senate Democrats. Looks like Alito is still an easy in. But we’ll have to wait til January and see. [...]