Novak: RW outraged over pro-choice Gonzales for Supreme Court

[quaoar]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak27.html

Gonzales for top court rankles right

BY ROBERT NOVAK
SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

It was not merely a leak from the normally leak-proof Bush White House. For more than a week, a veritable torrent has tipped Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as President Bush's first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. It has sent the conservative movement into spasms of fear and loathing.

Gonzales long has been unacceptable to anti-abortion activists because of his record as a Texas Supreme Court justice. Beyond pro-lifers, he is opposed by organized conservative lawyers. Ironically, the same Bush supporters who have been raising money and devising tactics for the mother of all judicial confirmation fights are in a panic that Gonzales will be named. With the president's popularity falling among his conservative base as well as the general populace, a politically disastrous moment may be at hand.

< snip >

If opposition to abortion is Bush's preeminent social conservative position, Gonzales is a most improbable choice. He could not bring himself to support parental notification on the Texas Supreme Court. While professing to be anti-abortion, he maintains Roe vs. Wade is inviolable.

Conservatives fear Gonzales will be another in a long line of justices who have proved more liberal than the president who appointed them expected -- John Paul Stevens, O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter. That is a view widely held inside the White House, but not by the occupant who counts most. Bush loves Gonzales.

[jedr]

1. Dems outraged that Bob Novak isn't in jail!

[displacedtexan]

2. Don't throw me into the briar patch!

Divert.

Obfuscate.

Confuse.

repeat.

[Firenze777]

3. I dunno

I really think Gonzales is AG because he's the one that decides if a Special Prosecutor is appointed in any administration investigation. That is immediately more important to Bush than a SCOTUS appt.

[Gay Green]

4. Much as I don't like Gonzales becoming a Justice at the SCOTUS,

I can't help but laugh at the screams of outrage from the fristian right who trusted Shrub all this time.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[quaoar]

5. True

If the anti-abortion folks can't even get Bush to name someone to overturn Roe, it's gotta be awfully demoralizing.

[Mist]

6. Unless this is just spin to take the wind out of the sails of Dems

who would object to Gonzales on the SC.