My comments weren't directed to the recent history especially (which I noted above in my comments about Kerry voting to approve some of the worst nominees in Supreme Court history) of Supreme Court nominations. But I think the need for legal expertise as a qualification over party ideology in the post-9/11 world is going to have much more influence than the pathetic "business as usual" process of nominating justices recently.

Arlen Spector of PA is poised to become head of the Judiciary committee now. He immediately came out and said he was in no mood to entertain political ideologue nominees. He said there was a vacuum right now on the Supreme Court of great LEGAL minds, and that it was hurting the court and not serving the nation well. I was actually quite surprised to hear Spector talk like that at first. But then when I heard the Frist was already trying to manipulate ways to keep Spector out of the Chair's seat on Judiciary in order to better serve the right wing political ideologues, I understood why Spector went public so quickly after the election with his remarks.

The Bush/Frist Republicans don't want Spector, because they can't push him around and manipulate him easily. They really need PA in the elections (as they found out again on Tuesday, when the state went to Kerry, but re-elected Spector), and Spector has turned out to have more integrity than I ever gave him credit for as senator.

That is why I always caution people not to automatically assume that politicians will react according to the Bush/Frist/Rove formula. We too easily forget that men like Spector are also interested in the ways history will view them. And historians look at things like the Supreme Court, much more than they do the budget wrangling or the pathetic Republican strategy of claiming they will call for a "constitutional amendment" about their favorite cultural hot button topics, like gay marriage. Those come and go all the time, and are not the stuff history is made of, when you think hard about this stuff.