Why do you think Souter is on the out? He seems healthy and have settled on his role as an associate justice pretty well. He may act like a reclusive person, but he seem engaging enough during oral arguments.

But given the performance of the supreme court this year, I doubt the senate democrats will allow another conservative pass them even if a republican president is elected.

-Chee Foong Chew

–Erik Rice

–Kedar Bhatia

Thanks for the ignorant distortions. I am not confused.

Griffith’s opposition to Title IX would be converted into hostility to women’s rights in general, including abortion. Not to mention Griffith compared himself to Rick Santorum.

http://www.now.org/issues/judicial/griffith.html

And conservatives trying to read the tea-leaves have concluded that Clement would be a reliable social conservative, more so than O’Connor and Kennedy. That certainly puts her in the “dismantle Roe” column.

http://www.redstate.com/story/2005/7/19/102823/364

Again, you sound like Harry Reid: ill-informed of the substance of Thomas’s opinions but jumping on the bandwagon nonetheless. Next you’ll be citing cases as examples of his “shallow” reasoning where he didn’t even write the opinion, or where it was a unanimous opinion. Go back, READ some of his opinions, and then make honest arguments against his abilities. Don’t simply parrot the “Thomas is an intellectual lightweight” garbage that passes as truth in elitist circles. Do some actual research and work.

It’s notable that, although President Bush had high praise for Justice Thomas during the campaign cycle, he’s had two opportunities to appoint another justice in that mold, and he did not do so. We haven’t had as much time to observe Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, but so far neither of them has emulated Justice Thomas’s approach to the law. Obviously they are conservatives too, but their approach to the craft of judging is simply different.

You must be confusing Edith Brown Clement with Edith Jones, both judges on the Fifth Circuit. Jones has clearly come out against Roe. Clement has no such voiced opinions.

As for Griffith, as a judge on the DC Circuit, he would have had no opportunities to rule on anything abortion related, so I’m not sure why you think he has rendered any such opinion. The DC Circuit rarely if ever hears cases with any sort of social issues implications. To my knowledge (and I have research most of these people), he has never voiced any position with regard to Roe and/or abortion, which is one of the reasons he received more than 70 votes for confirmation.

On an unrelated note, why do some of us on this board thinks that Justice Souter would be first to retire?

-Chee Foong Chew

Griffith and Clement have known abortion positions. They would be tarred as Roe-overturners.

I never said Gorush isn’t brilliant. But those articles would be ripped apart and thrown in his face.

While you appear to be taking a Goldwater-like “extremism in defense of virtue is no vice” approach to his jurisprudence, his tin ear for even long standing understandings of what certain provisions of the constitution mean takes him far from both the umpire model of jurisprudence to which so many conservatives purport to aspire, and from the purposive tradition oriented jurisprudence that sees the constitution as having an underlying political theory that is intends to carry out that needs to guide the continuing development of a constitutional tradition, which most liberals tend to favor.

Of course, that is really beyond the scope of the orignal post here. Also, thanks for correcting the Eid DOB data. I made a quick and dirty guess based on graduation dates in her biography, as I didn’t have the actual DOB close at hand.

–Chee Foong Chew

How about Lee Rosenthal and Loretta Preska? Both have been mentioned on more than one occasion as excellent, conservative judges on the short list.

Thomas Griffith and Edith Brown Clement have almost no record on social issues. To what are you referring?

Gorsuch has written an article or two, but they’re intelligent positions and easily defensible.

You make my argument for me. Under none of your criteria can Thomas be considered mediocre. First you say “he has a clear vision of the law which he sticks to rigorously.” This is a fundamental characteristic of a successful SCOTUS justice (cf. David Souter). Further you say this makes his jurisprudence “either breathtaking or frustrating.” Nothing mediocre about that. The points of being a visionary or out-of-touch are meaningless and demonstrate the writer’s misunderstanding of the justice’s role. A justice needs to be in-touch with nothing other than the law, so to the extent the pejorative “out-of-touch” refers to some preferred social understanding, it is foolish and naive.

Your point about writing majority opinions vs. dissents is important but misses the point. The ability to bring coalitions together for majorities is political in nature, and has very little to do with one’s legal or jurisprudential ability. Warren was a master politician but a third-rate legal mind. Similarly was Brennan, though his legal acumen was considerably greater than Warren’s. And many of the great justices are remembered for their dissents, which often eventually became (or influenced) the law of the land: Harlan (I & II), Holmes, Brandeis, Black, Frankfurter, and more recently Rehnquist and Scalia.

That is not to say Thomas measures up with those legal giants. It is to say no honest, reasonable argument can be made that he is mediocre.