It is begun...

A great moderate, Sandra Day O'Connor, has announced her retirement (Go here for a profile on her legal legacy). The game of Who Will Replace Her has begun (actually the pre-game started early in Bush's first term). I don't know how soon Bush will announce his nominee, but IMO, the placement of a SCOTUS justice has a further reaching implication than the presidential elections. That means all of the fun partisanship of the past few years will get to another point of boiling over. My eyes will be aching in just a matter of days from my rolling them incessantly from pundit commentary.

I will do a little posting on the candidate(s) from a variety of sources in hopes of letting everyone get as complete of an image of the people of interest. Bush may be a stubborn bastard that always picks the bold choice, but I can tell you now that he will not be nominating Adolf Hitler for the bench. (TANGENT: Daily Show had a great segment about the overuse of Hitler that even featured a quick clip of Darrell Ankarlo from a Fox News appearance!) There will be BOTH positive and negatives aspects to his nominee and everyone should look at both sides. SCOTUS justices have a lovely tendency to find their own way once seated and can't be depended upon to maintain the ideological stance painted on him/her by the president and his adversaries.

One aspect that I'm grateful for in this instance is that Sen. Arlen Spector (one of the last moderate GOP Senators left) is the chairman of the Judicial Committee. You can read more about my favorite elected official here and here.

( Links for potential nominees and documents on some of the frontrunners )