George W. Bush has been put in the position where he can now assurredly make a lasting impact on the make-up of the Supreme Court, and thus on the direction the country takes over the next possibly two decades or more. Chief Justice William Rehnquist has died, so now Bush has two appointments to make, not just one, in fact, he has three appointments to make. He has hoped that he can hit a double with the nomination of John Roberts to replace Rehnquist as Chief Justice. But Bush is so obvious in his timing of the announcement, he may well have hit into a double play. In an effort to misdirect attention away from the New Orleans and Gulf Coast tragedy, he may have revealed himself to be the insensitive lout that many of us have long suspected him to be.
As for his second appointment, I have a feeling he may have decided by now to reach out to the New Orleans area, and to women, by appointing a female circuit federal judge from the New Orleans Fifth District, who will be likely to appeal to neither citizens of New Orleans or to women in general.
As for Roberts, Bush knows a lot more about him, I suspect, than he is letting on. He seems to be telling his conservative base, hey, look, I'm appointing him to replace Rehnquist as Chief Justice, would I do that if he werent' a conservative? And to his opponents he seems to be saying, hey, if you prefer I could appoint Scalia. Or Thomas.
Roberts is a strange man in a lot of ways. Everytime you look at him, he looks like he is about to break down and just start bawling and crying. On the other hand, I remember a character on an old tv show called Twin Peaks. In it, a bereaved father and lawyer turned out to be the mysterious murderer possessed by the demonic spirit named "Bob". He always looked like he was on the edge and at any time might be about to just break down and cry over the murder of his beloved daughter Laura Palmer.
But then, the truth was revealed, and he broke down into uncontrollable laughter.
