The NEW Roberts Nomination

President Bush has obviously made two calculations relative to the two vacancies on the Supreme Court:

In spite of what had promised to be a contentious confirmation process, he had the votes for Roberts' confirmation for Associate Justice and therefore, is likely to have the votes for Chief Justice.

The President, for whatever reason, will likely nominate to the Court persons who, in the mold of Roberts, are less polarizing than say, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas.

My guess is that the President is going to try mightily to nominate a female or Hispanic jurist to take the slot of Sandra Day O'Connor. But he may feel less urgency about naming someone for that position since O'Connor's resignation, according to the letter she sent to the President, only goes into effect once her successor is in place. In the wake of the Katrina tragedy, Mr. Bush may be disinclined to take on a bruising partisan fight, only increasing the chances that his nominee will be a conservative who gets the backing of his supporters while not engendering deep hostility from his foes. My choice is still Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio.

While I believe that the President would like to appoint the Attorney General to the associate justiceship, the current political atmosphere isn't conducive to it, since the AG seems equally unpopular among both conservative and liberal ideologues.