oh god no.

Why on earth would you want anyone other than a judge to be a Supreme Court justice? God forbid we nominate an accomplished jurist to the highest court in the land.

Even the most liberal or conservative justices are judges first. They come at their decisions from their own reasoned, principled interpretation of the law. You nominate some politician and you will get explicitly policy based rulings. That's not good for that party, not good for the court, not good for the country.

invictus +1

"Chief Justice Rehnquist [was] appointed without having earlier served as a judge. But it’s worth remembering that Rehnquist himself wasn’t an outlier: Of the eight Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon appointees, a majority — White, Goldberg, Fortas, Powell, and Rehnquist — hadn’t served as judges. (The ones who had served as judges were Marshall, Burger, and Blackmun.)"

It's not without precedent to name to the bench a politician rather than a jurist or scholar. Earl Warren (Chief Justice, 1953-1969) was governor of California when he was nominated. He had previously run for VP on Dewey's ticket in 1948.

If Hillary were willing to do this, Obama would've already nominated her - this would be a great way to dispose of her (which I'm sure he'd love to do). This is just spitballing by someone (Sen. Hatch) who is completely out of the loop.

She is, at least, a jurist. I actually think she would do a good job... but don't expect Obama to touch that political third rail - she is simply too hated by too many.

Putting her in as Secretary of State already effectively disposed of her as a candidate for 2012 (though kept her relevant for 2016). She would lose credibility to run against her boss. It would look very self-serving. (It was a brilliant move by Obama). ...and she seems to be doing a decent job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ6eXR0RHDQ

Also, Renquist is a bad example. Having read many of the opinions he wrote for the court, his logic is often quite tortured. Its harder to swallow for me than say Scalia, because despite the fact that I may not like the result, Justice Scalia's opinions are usually very hard to argue with, because he's quite brilliant.

Renquist's opinions to me often feel like he worked backwards from what he wanted the opinion to be, and scrabbling for justification to do so.

Rehnquist was Assistant Attorney General, White was Deputy Attorney General, Goldberg was a prominent labor lawyer (he was Secretary of Labor, but that was after he made his reputation as a lawyer), Fortas was a prominent attorney who argued the Supreme Court case that required states to provide defendants with attorneys, Powell was President of the ABA. Earl Warren was California's Attorney General first.

Even if there have been politicians appointed in the past, that hardly makes it a good idea. Hilary is a lawyer in the same way Ron Paul is a doctor.

I guess I'm just crazy for wanting experienced and smart legal minds to be the people on the Court, rather than a glorified party hack. I actually think the President is with me on this one.

Next they'll be saying Chief Justice Obama in 2017.

The point is moot anyway. Read the article again.
> UPDATE: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs put the speculation to rest
> today, saying, "The president is going to keep [Clinton] as his secretary of state."

@Invictus, you said "I guess I'm just crazy for wanting experienced and smart legal minds to be the people on the Court, rather than a glorified party hack. I actually think the President is with me on this one." So I guess that means that you thought Sotomayor was a solid appointment? (I did).

I have to think that there were people better, but she certainly is a smart babe. He won and gets to appoint who he wants.

I don't think anyone would hold 'running against her boss' against her. Especially if things get very bad by 2012. Picking her as SoS was a peace agreement with the Israeli Lobby, who were untrusting of and therefore strongly opposed to Obama (an extremely unknown quantity WRT foreign policy) - not an effort to keep her out of the limelight (if that was the intention, it was an utter failure). Hillary (an established and trusted friend to Israel) as head of the American foreign policy wing of government was a guarantee that American foreign policy would remain strongly pro-Israel and there would be no radical changes; had it not been done, the Israeli lobby would be doing everything in its power to topple the Obama regime (and probably would've succeeded by now).

You're an idiot.

Wow

Hillary Clinton had an exceptional legal career before she got involved in her husband's politics. Of course you'd have to be--oh, I don't know--30 or older in order to know that. :)

lmao chief justice obama that's rich

I used to think Obama on the Supreme Court would be a good idea...

Now I think he might have undue sympathies for the Executive if he were to serve on the Court.