Author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
On the assumption (a big one) that Hillary Clinton is elected president, I think there is an overwhelming political and legal logic supporting Barack Obama as her first nominee to the Supreme Court. He is a former professor of constitutional law [at the University of Chicago].
He’s very young by Supreme Court standards. He’s an ethnic minority. I can’t imagine he’d have a lot of trouble getting confirmed. And the political jujitsu of eliminating him as a potential threat down the line is sublime.
I asked Obama about it, and he said he thought he would find the Court too sedentary. But I thought his declaration of lack of interest was extremely halfhearted. I think he’d like to be on the Supreme Court, as most people would. In the course of my interviewing him about the Supreme Court, he showed that he had kept very current on the Court’s activities, had analyzed recent cases, and showed that he still has a sophisticated understanding of constitutional law.
We find Mr. Obama too “sedentary” and too Liberal for the White House or Supreme Court. Hillary Clinton as President and Justice Hussein Obama? This is too much to consider, but consider it we should, indeed!
What’s your opinion?
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September 17th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
In general, I like this idea of Obama as a Supreme Court Justice, since I am half way through his Audacity of Hope; however, there are some rather more pressing problems for the USA on the horizon:
In the real international economic and politcal realm, there is a much larger scale confrontation with Bush from the candidates regarding the Iraq War and the problems it is continuing to cause, after six years of Halliburton, Brown and Root, and Blackwater corporate kleptocracy. Only one candidate, it seems to me, is really slamming the truth and providing the logistics and rationale for ending this disastrous war: Bill Richardson. This article was printed in the Washington Post about 9 days ago, and please take the time to read it:
_______________________
Why We Should Exit Iraq Now
By Bill Richardson
Saturday, September 8, 2007; A15
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have suggested that there islittle difference among us on Iraq. This is not true: I am the only leading Democratic candidate committed to getting all our troops out and doing so quickly.
In the most recent debate, I asked the other candidates how many troops theywould leave in Iraq and for what purposes. I got no answers. The American people need answers. If we elect a president who thinks that troops should stay in Iraq for years, they will stay for years — a tragic mistake.
Clinton, Obama and Edwards reflect the inside-the-Beltway thinking that acomplete withdrawal of all American forces somehow would be “irresponsible.” On the contrary, the facts suggest that a rapid, complete withdrawal — not a drawn-out, Vietnam-like process —would be the most responsible and effective course of action.
Those who think we need to keep troops in Iraq misunderstand the MiddleEast. I have met and negotiated successfully with many regional leaders,including Saddam Hussein. I am convinced that only a complete withdrawal can sufficiently shift the politics of Iraq and its neighbors to break the deadlock that has been killing so many people for so long.
Our troops have done everything they were asked to do with courage and professionalism, but they cannot win someone else’s civil war. So long as American troops are in Iraq, reconciliation among Iraqi factions is postponed. Leaving forces there enables the Iraqis to delay taking the steps to end the violence. And it prevents us from using diplomacy to bring in other nations to help stabilize and rebuild the country.
The presence of American forces in Iraq weakens us in the war against al-Qaeda. It endows the anti-American propaganda of those who portray us as occupiers plundering Iraq’s oil and repressing Muslims. The day we leave, this myth collapses, and the Iraqis will drive foreign jihadists out of their country. Our departure would also enable us to focus on defeating the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11, those headquartered along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border — not in Iraq.
Logistically, it would be possible to withdraw in six to eight months. We moved as many as 240,000 troops into and out of Iraq through Kuwait in as
little as a three-month period during major troop rotations. After the Persian Gulf War, we redeployed nearly a half-million troops in a few months. We could redeploy even faster if we negotiated with the Turks to open a route out through Turkey.
As our withdrawal begins, we will gain diplomatic leverage. Iraqis will start seeing us as brokers, not occupiers. Iraq’s neighbors will face the reality that if they don’t help with stabilization, they will face the consequences of Iraq’s collapse — including even greater refugee flows over their borders and possible war.
The United States can facilitate Iraqi reconciliation and regional cooperation by holding a conference similar to that which brought peace to Bosnia. We will need regional security negotiations among all of Iraq’s neighbors and discussions of donations from wealthy nations — including oil-rich Muslim countries — to help rebuild Iraq. None of this can happen until we remove the biggest obstacle to diplomacy: the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq.
My plan is realistic because:
It is less risky. Leaving forces behind leaves them vulnerable. Would we need another surge to protect them?
It gets our troops out of the quagmire and strengthens us for our real challenges. It is foolish to think that 20,000 to 75,000 troops could bring peace to Iraq when 160,000 have not. We need to get our troops out of the crossfire in Iraq so that we can defeat the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11.
By hastening the peace process, the likelihood of prolonged bloodshed is reduced. President Richard Nixon withdrew U.S. forces slowly from Vietnam —with disastrous consequences. Over the seven years it took to get our troops out, 21,000 more Americans and perhaps a million Vietnamese, most of them civilians, died. All this death and destruction accomplished nothing — the communists took over as soon as we left.
My position has been clear since I entered this race: Remove all the troopsand launch energetic diplomatic efforts in Iraq and internationally to bring stability. If Congress fails to end this war, I will remove all troops without delay, and without hesitation, beginning on my first day in office.
Let’s stop pretending that all Democratic plans are similar. The American people deserve precise answers from anyone who would be commander in chief. How many troops would you leave in Iraq? For how long? To do what, exactly? And the media should be asking these questions of the candidates, rather than allowing them to continue saying, “We are against the war . . . but please don’t read the small print.”
The writer is governor of New Mexico and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
September 17th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Stephen Fox leaves a Liberals take on the fiction of Iraq by himself and Bill Richardson a Clinton leftover. and non-candidate for President.
Of course most of the candidates on both sides amount to empty suits and one lying pants-suit.
Take time to read this? Are you kidding……….from the Washington Post and Bill Richardson.
And please quit pounding the same leftover nonsense about Haliburton etc, etc, etc. The Liberals have recently had their head handed to them on Iraq with out a sword and Allah Akbar, just the same, Richardson is out of touch with reality on the world we live in. The world where terrorism exists, extremists are planning and they must be stopped, you can’t appease them only kill them.