White Males Need Not Apply

For any future openings on the Supreme Court, that is.  For if Justices Rehnquist or Stevens or Ginsberg retire or are felled by illness, with Sandra Day O'Connor leaving the court and John Roberts very likely to take her place, and with numerous calls even before this nomination for O'Connor to be replaced by a woman, even from a very close associate and afterward from O'Connor herself, President Bush would be hard-pressed to nominate another white male for a second opening.  If he did he would be pilloried by the diversity hawks on the left, regardless of the qualifications and quality of the nominee.

While there certainly many black, hispanic and female candidates that are of high quality and would make excellent choices, such as Gonzalez, Rogers Brown, Garza and Estrada, choosing Roberts pretty much eliminates McConnell, Luttig and other similar "men of pallor" from nomination to future openings, no matter their qualifications.  If the second to leave is Ginsberg then the field is narrowed even further, including only those with two 'X" chromosomes.  Such is the insidious and subtle discrimination of "diversity."

UPDATE: Over at The Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman discusses an Anita Hill (remember her?) piece.  She says, contrary to my opinion above, that the choice of Roberts indicates that the process the President followed in making this selection will naturally lead to him choosing another white male for a second opening.  I agree with Gandelman - she's dead wrong.

UPDATE: Captain Ed has several more thoughts on Ms. Hill's musings, including wonderment that sterling qualifications shouldn't be first and foremost, as I noted above, and puzzlement at her absence in the debates over other candidates for other positions.

I have one question for Hill, before she returns to the well-deserved obscurity she earned: Where was this column when Janice Rogers Brown got pilloried by Senate Democrats for four years? Priscilla Owen? Miguel Estrada?

Comments

[Will Franklin]

Yeah, I tend to agree that there will be a great deal of pressure the next time around to appoint a woman or minority or both.

[E.M.]

I think if they get through this with a white male, we've made it through a much harder confirmation process. Rehnquist is a conservative, so replacing him with a conservative will be easier--a minority female will be a good choice, as it will look terrible for the Dems to screw her over.

[Giacomo]

I agree. Frankly, any conservative, or even primarily libertarian, justice that gets through the process will be more than welcome, and it doesn't matter to me if they're pink with purple spots and a hermaphrodite. The point is, obviously, that Bush's white male "quota" will have been exhausted.

What's the betting line on Janice Rogers Brown?