The Race To Replace Justice Stevens, Part 2

A lot of criticism has been put on the White House about the President's upcoming Supreme Court nominee choice being "safe" and the President backing away from a conflict.  My response has been that since the GOP will oppose whomever the President will pick, he might was well pick someone as liberal as Stevens was.

Today, the White House indicated that it does indeed believe that about the Republicans and is now prepared for that fight.  Christina Bellantoni:

President Obama thinks Republicans will engage in a full battle over his Supreme Court nominee regardless of the person's ideological leanings, and in some ways "that realization is liberating for the president" to choose whomever he pleases, an administration official told TPMDC.

In comments that are at odds with the conventional wisdom about what Obama needs to do to make sure the Senate confirms his nominee to replace John Paul Stevens, a White House official involved in the confirmation process tells TPMDC that the President isn't taking a cautious approach to selecting a nominee. Despite having one less Democrat in the Senate than when Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed last year, the administration isn't limiting itself to reviewing only centrist candidates for the court vacancy, the official said.

"It doesn't matter who he chooses, there is going to be a big 'ol fight over it. So he doesn't have to get sidetracked by those sorts of concerns," the official told me. The GOP has attempted to obstruct "anything of consequence" put forth by the Obama administration since he took office, the official said. "The president is making this decision with a pretty clear view that whoever he chooses is going to provoke a strong reaction on the right," the official added.

Brilliant.  That's exactly what the White house should be saying at this point, and it alleviates a lot of my concerns about the selection process, and that Obama had already all but decided on Elena Kagan.  Double G offers an alternative pick:  Judge Diane Wood, a strong choice all around.

If one were to analogize the search for Justice Stevens' replacement to the recently concluded health care debate, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Wood would be the public option.  Just as the truly left-wing health care approach (a single-payer system) was eliminated from consideration before the process even began, so, too, have the truly left-wing candidates to replace Justice Stevens (Pam Karlan, Harold Koh) been ruled out as "not viable."  As a result, the moderate-progressive compromises (i.e., the public option for health care and Diane Wood for Stevens' replacement) are falsely depicted as some sort of liberal extremism, merely because they're the least conservative options allowed to be considered.  Contrary to how she's now being cast, Judge Wood is a very cautious and law-based jurist who resides far from the furthest left end of the mainstream judicial spectrum.  In fact, one of her most distinctive attributes is the uniform respect and collegial relationships she has with her conservative colleagues on one of the nation's more right-wing courts.

Greenwald makes a very convincing argument that Wood will pass muster and is a preferable pick to Kagan based on her decisions in a number of cases, exploring her displayed jurisprudence and its similarity to that of Stevens.  We'll see if the White House follows suit, after last week it seemed that Kagan was the choice.  now, the White house has clearly signaled that the decision has not been made.  Perhaps Wood is being considered, or even a more liberal-leaning justice.

Regardless, this is a very positive sign, and the White House is correct, any justice Obama nominates will be attacked as a liberal ideologue.  the Sotomayor hearings were proof enough of that.