On Politics: Judiciary

Aside from his likely opponents being either rabid, barking at the sun, far-right crazypants nut jobs who shouldn't be trusted to make breakfast let alone run the country, or craven opportunists who realize the necessity of appearing crazy to clear the primaries, potential Supreme Court nominations are my sole motivation to push the O button in 2012.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has assembled a cast of judicial advisers heavy with ties to the George W. Bush administration and with icons of the political right - a lineup that is likely to score points with social conservatives.

One cochair of what Romney calls his Justice Advisory Committee is former Appeals Court justice Robert Bork, a martyr of conservative legal thought whose 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court was sunk by liberals.

Actually Bork's nomination was sunk by his extremist judicial beliefs- all Ted Kennedy did was broadcast his opinions to the public. But let's not quibble- his failure taught the right wing a valuable lesson in presentation and resulted in the current crop of overtly Republican nutters running the court.

Disillusioned as I am with Obama, contemplating which species of judicial leper would be vile enough to receive the blessing of a potential President Perry or Bachmann is enough to keep me up nights.