He’s a regular trickster isn’t he
WASHINGTON, September 8 – Analysts believe Bush has played his cards tremendously smart by moving up Roberts from an associate judge nominee to Chief Justice nominee in the wind of the Katrina disaster. All the media attention is headed to anything with the words New Orleans and Biloxi in it so Roberts’ shooting fame goes almost undetected and his hearings will start soon.
Bush has probably put his money on the fact that the citizens of this country do not want any difficult questions at the confirmation hearings because they are all focused on the tragedy that occurred last week. After Roberts was heading for the associate judge confirmation hearing almost untouched he thought moving him up for the Chief Justice position wouldn’t attract any attention, partially he’s right. Replacing an extreme conservative with another one is no problem, actually more or less expected. I can’t fail to point out that Roberts has been called a moderate conservative by his supporters, trying to sway the Democrats to go along for the dance but why would the Republicans put up a moderate conservative to replace an extreme conservative? That would be like shooting your own foot! The obvious explanation is simple, they have been trying to play him off as a moderate just to get him in and shift one more notch to the right. That leaves a new problem, Bush has a second vacancy on the court which he is free to fill, putting up a conservative of any kind will be hard to pull off now that he has redirected Roberts to the Chief Justice position.
Many think he will nominate long-time friend and loyal supporter Alberto Gonzalez, Bush has never tried to hide his love for this man and naming a Hispanic male would be a first for the Supreme Court. However he will play it out, it just might be that he overplayed his cards and the second nomination might not be such a breeze, after all is Bush willing to pick a fight over this after the Iraq mess, the Katrina-disaster and the sloppy follow-up, will his supporters stand by him just to ensure a conservative court for years to come?
