Supreme Being

Justice David Souter confirmed the rumors of his retirement from the Supreme Court of the United States with an appeal to President Obama in the White House. Now comes the speculation on who will replace him.

This will be the first meeting of the Supreme Court for a Democratic president in more than fifteen years. The recovery will probably not change the ideological balance of the Supreme Court in the Justice Souter is a liberal minded as opposed to what they thought of his addiction when he was appointed by President George HW Bush.

As expected, another liberal justice will probably supported the recovery. There is strong support for a woman to be the replacement because there is only one woman on the ground right now, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sixty six years and not in the best of health who fought against cancer at several times during his mandate.

This can be seen by the first discussions of liberal feminist organizations and weighing on this as soon as the rumor that Souter would retire, leading to suppose that they were ready for any announcement of the retirement of several judges of them will probably be tried soon.

"We are looking for Obama to choose a well qualified candidate who is committed to the constitutional foundation which is committed to justice for all and not just some." So says Nan Aron, head of ultra-liberal/activist Alliance for Justice. Read: "We are looking for another liberal in the field to maintain the status quo." They will probably push for a wife. It will be interesting to see their positions and recommendations.

Now it is sticky even if we assume that President Obama will appoint liberal justice. The pressure is on him to choose a woman - a lot of time. Here we enter the arena of gender and / or ethnic politics. Critics of the Supreme Court have long accused of being a bastion of conservative white men do not reflect the population as a whole. The cries have long echoed various groups of women to even the playing field by appointing more women to the highest court of our nation group.

Several opportunities for women were mentioned as candidates, including Judge Diane Wood of Chicago Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the court of Appeals of New York and the judge Kim Wardlaw of the U.S. 9th Circuit, among others. It will be interesting to see the full list of women who surface as potential candidates.

Obama has not committed itself to appoint a woman as a matter of principle. He travels, he is looking for a candidate the constitutional right, an imminent qualified to do the job and not necessarily a candidate of a particular group of political activists. But do not underestimate the pressure of women's groups to do so. There will be immense and relentless as to be almost insurmountable, and not politically possible to ignore. And ethnic groups, mainly Hispanics, will weigh heavily on any of the nominations of their choice.

Thus, the waiting begins. Feminist prevail on the president? Are Hispanics clamor of their ethnic contributions? This will be an interesting exercise in gender and ethnic politics - more than the presidential election process that most recently has been flooded with such absurdity that it was time we had a woman in the House White - as if that was the only consideration in our choices. Fortunately, not many have succumbed to this argument even if Hillary certainly pushed the limit. She may have claimed to have cracked the glass ceiling, but the public vote, which could have broken it surprisingly, seen through its gender politics for what it was - is hogwash.

Interestingly, the more sense I have heard so far on this selection process comes from the most unlikely of sources, Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School.