It's O'Connor

I haven't posted anything on the rampant speculation about the SCOTUS retirement sweepstakes, and for what I consider a very sound reason: through yesterday, no sitting justice had quit. I guess that's why I have no interest in fantasy football.

That condition has now changed.

Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court and a swing vote on abortion as well as other contentious issues, announced her retirement Friday. A bruising Senate confirmation struggle loomed as President Bush pledged to name a successor quickly.

O'Connor's resignation letter was one paragraph in length, which is a degree of brevity I would have thought impossible for an Olympian. Heck, even I'm windier than that....

Her departing words and those of the President were predictably superlative and forgettable. His operative sentence was his last - a pledge to nominate a replacement who will "faithfully interpret the law."

NOW all this "Who will Bush choose?" fog is actually worth paying attention to.

For starters, for those obsessed with maintaining the Court's "balance," take note of this summation of O'Connor's tenure:

O'Connor should be remembered as one of the worst contributors to American jurisprudence in recent history. She was notorious as a "swing vote," equally maddening to Left and Right at various times. But she consistently held one of the most expansionist views of judicial power, committed always to the most capacious version of the Court's authority over American life.

Call me loopy, but I don't think that jibes with the President's aforementioned pledge. Which means, so much for "balance," assuming he keeps his word. Which means, forget about an Alberto Gonzalez nomination, if Dubya knows what's good for him.

On the abortion front, baby-killers have nothing immediate to fear, apart from the potential loss of legality for infanticide. Not that the activist Left isn't going to go into paroxysms of overwrought hyperventilating anyway, just on general principles.

As to fast-tracking O'Connor's successor...can we get serious? The White House has announced that Bush won't announce his choice until after the G-8 conference next week. With the other side at DEFCON-1 already, Senate Judiciary would be overachieving to even get hearings started before August, much less a vote. And once - or, rather, if - a nominee clears Committee, back will come the filibuster in all its glory, with seven RINOs lined up behind its perpetuation. Anybody who thinks that the SCOTUS will reconvene in October with more than eight members on hand has been digging into the funny mushrooms again. Unless, of course, the President abjectly surrenders and appoints, say, Lawrence Tribe, or Janet Reno, or Bill Clinton.

I hope that's a joke.

The Democrats don't, as you might have expected. Remember their imperious warnings that Bush had better "consult" with them before making a choice? That full court press has now gone into overdrive:

Ted Kennedy just warned the President in a presser than W better consult the Senate. And I hear Harry Reid's statement (he's on a plane, evidently) is the same kind of thing.

Senator Akaka says her placement should be just like her. In other words, The pro-lifers better not not be comfortable with you nom, Mr. President.

Quite obviously a "shot over the bow" as opposed to a genuine expectation. Judiciary Chairman "Snarlin' Arlen" Specter has already said he won't be the Donks' puppet on consultation, at least. But that just means....oh, hell, you know what it means.

So who'll it be? Littig? Roberts? McConnell? Does it matter? The Democrats will block anybody to the right of Fidel Castro anyway, and that includes the aforementioned Alberto "That Torture Memo Guy/Half-Justice" Gonzalez. The President might as well get his money's worth instead of pissing off his base for yet another double-cross.

After all, if anybody should grasp the necessity of principled, high-stakes confrontations, it's George W. Bush. He has written the book on it.

My prediction? The best of all possible worlds - conservative, Hispanic, and perhaps the person who would be most vindicated by elevation to Olympus: Miguel Estrada.

In the words of Michael Buffer, "Llllllllets get ready to rumblllllllle..."

Michelle Malkin and Blogs for Bush have link roundups.

UPDATE 7/2: Double-H has a sneak preview of what this next few months will look like, and what the President and Senators Frist and Specter had better be prepared to do if they expect to win this mother of all battles.

I still know where my money would be riding, though.

UPDATE II: As should surprise nobody, picks and touts are all over the center-right judicial bullpen. Brother Meringoff at Powerline says that it'll be (assuming a Rehnquest retirement is also imminent) a blue plate special of Alberto Gonzalez and either 4th Circuit Judge Michael Littig or D.C. Circuit Judge John Roberts (in that order), though not which would come first. NRO's Ed Whelan, weighing the "gotta maintain the girl seat" angle, suggests either of two lady judges from the Fifth Circuit, Edith Jones or the recently confirmed Priscilla Owen.

The two most persuasive arguments for alternatives to Miguel Estrada I've come across are...

First, Dafydd ab Hugh (Ed Morrissey's guest-contributor for the next week), who makes a strong case for Emilo Garza as a more confirmable Hispanic nominee:

The three [Hispanic] names that come bubbling up (probably because most people, including moi, don't know more than three Hispanics who have been talked about for Court material) are Miguel Estrada, Alberto Gonzales, and Emilio Garza.

The first two bring problems: Estrada was originally nominated to the powerful D.C. Circus Court; but he was filibustered, and he eventually got fed up with the whole affair and withdrew his name. To the Democrats, renominating Estrada would be like giving them dessert after a wonderful entré: it was T-bone steak to drive him away the first time; and now that he has demonstrated spinelessness in the face of battle, it would be key lime pie to run him off a second time....

So that leaves Emilio Garza: a solid strict constructionist with fourteen years on the 5th Circuit (appellate) Court and well known to the Bush family, since it was Bush-41 who appointed him to the Circus Court in 1991.

...and, though more of a long shot, Brother Hinderaker hybridizes the gender and race/ethnicity angles by tapping the DC Circuit's newest member, Janice Rogers Brown:

If there were any doubt about a second vacancy opening up soon, I'd want to make sure that we got one of the most solid candidates confirmed - Luttig, Roberts, McConnell. But we know that Bush will get a second appointment soon. If Bush nominates Brown, the Dems will go stark raving mad - even more so, I think, than they would over the three favorites. If that's possible. But their craziness would strike many people as bizarre, especially given that the Senate just confirmed Brown to the Court of Appeals a couple of weeks ago. Further, many people would notice that the last time we had one of these bouts of hysteria was over Clarence Thomas, and some would notice a pattern....Brown may not be as solid and consistent a conservative as some of the other candidates, but she is very smart, and is both very conservative and very outspoken on a number of issues - including property rights, a current concern. And her character and personal history are inspiring.

Definitely palatable food for thought.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Welcome again, Mark in Mexico readers!