Sunday, May 29, 2005

''Who won? Wait for high-court fray: Filibuster pact may cost Dems''

Thanks to Bev Marcus who passes along this column from Dick Polman in the Philadelphia Inquirer, via the Seattle Times: "PHILADELPHIA — This summer, Washington may well vie with Hollywood for biggest blockbuster. The mother of all political battles, over the future of the U.S. Supreme Court, is drawing near.

With Chief Justice William Rehnquist seriously ill — in fact, with eight of the nine justices older than 65 — the odds are high that at least one job will open for the first time in 11 years. And that will unleash passions on the left and right, in the first confirmation showdown of the Internet era, with blogs and Web sites stoking the ideological warfare 24/7.

Anyone tapped by President Bush to fill a vacancy will be forced into the maelstrom. Nevertheless, Bush seems poised to get what he wants: to accentuate the court's rightward tilt, potentially to reshape the bench as no president has done since Franklin D. Roosevelt."

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