Waiting to Warm the Bench

With Supreme Court Justice David Souter announcing his retirement (to say nothing of the increasing geriatricness--geriatricity? geriatricitude?--of the rest of the Court's liberal wing), it is time to start considering replacements.  Today's Times pointed out that President Obama could take this opportunity to reach beyond what has become the standard pool of nominees, the Federal Appeals Courts, in order to broaden the Court's sensibility.

It is worth reiterating at this point that there is no specific requirement that a Supreme Court Justice be a judge or even a practicing lawyer.  Indeed, over the course of its history, Justices have included governors, senators, attorneys general, and even cabinet officials, all of whom fulfilled their judicial obligations with greater or lesser degrees of success; that is, on the whole, they were neither better nor worse than those who had taken a more "expected" path to the bench.

But we would like to point out that the requirements--or lack thereof--for a Supreme Court nominee pretty much allow anyone to be considered.  Unless we're misreading something, the only requirements are a nomination by the President and a confirmation by the Senate.  Oh, sure, some familiarity with US history and jursiprudence might be a desirable qualification, but it's not on the books.  If all right-thinking (which is to say, in general, left-thinking) people got together, we could surely come up with some good outside-the-box nominees.  One thinks Bruce Springsteen would make a good Justice--one whose opinions would be brief and rhymie (and, seriously, what senator would want to face his constituents after voting against confirmation of the Boss?).  Paul Newman would have been good, but there are plenty of well-informed liberal types left in Hollywood: Susan Sarandon isn't really getting the juicy roles anymore, and she'd look good in black satin.   How about Jon Stewart and/or Stephen Colbert?  How about putting a writer on the bench?  Kurt Vonnegut may be gone, but he has plenty of disciples.

Presumably, many of these folks are perfectly happy doing what they're doing.  So Mr. Obama has to find someone who shares these folks' viewpoints, but who doesn't have quite so much of an interesting life that they wouldn't be willing to give it up.

Well, it's obvious, isn't it?  President Obama, the Solipsist awaits your call.