Justice O'Connor

Supreme court justice Sandra Day O'Connor sent her letter of resignation to President Bush this morning. While this was not a complete shock, it was a little unexpected. The far left has been reeling all day. Moveon.org has already started the media blitz focusing pretty much on the abortion angle, and the usual suspects on the democrat side of the senate aisle have joined in.

This is going to be a dirty, nasty fight, and I pity the nominee who actually has to go through the process. Senator's Reid, Kennedy and Durbin, not to mention How-Weird Dean are going to hit this nominee with everything that they have.

On the other side, President Bush will, and should nominate who he thinks is the best candidate for the job. During his campaign he promised that he would have no litmus test for a supreme court nominee. Now is his time to deliver on that promise. If it were Justice Rehnquist who had retired, the opposition would not be so great. The left would figure that it would be a conservative for a conservative. Justice O'Connor has been a "swing vote" in the court voting on both thte conservative side and leaning to the liberal side, although she voted conservatively more often than liberal.

My view is simple. President Bush is going to nominate a judge who will interpret the the constitution and not legislate from the bench. The left, of course will go ballistic and mount a filibuster against the nomination. The constitutional option will take place and there will be no more filibusters against judicial nominees allowed.

Between the beginning of the process, which is already happening, and the end result, there will be much gnashing of teeth. This is going to be dirty. There will be several senators who will be running for re-election who will be looking for another job in 2006 because of their vote on this nomination.