You should be aware, before someone can be nominated by President Bush for the Supreme Court, he or she will have to pass what is often called by the media a "litmus test." The president will deny he is applying a litmus test and so will the senators who must confirm his nominee. The stronger the denial, the more certain a litmus test will be applied. How does this litmus test work?
A prospective nominee is stripped naked and hung above a chemical solution. During this process, he or she will be asked how they feel about abortion and gay marriage. The prospective nominee will claim he or she has never thought about the subject and has no preconceived legal opinions about the constitutionality of either issue. The prospective nominee is then lowered into the vat of chemicals. If the prospective nominee turns red, it means he or she is conservative enough for the president to nominate to the court. If he or she turns blue, the candidate is deemed too liberal for the court and Mr. Bush will then choose someone more suitable.
Assuming the candidate passes Mr. Bush’s litmus test, he or she is announced as the nominee. The president will emphasize the "credentials" of the nominee. The adjectives most used will be "brilliant," "wise" and "fair-minded." Democrats will respond critically by noting the only legal experience Mr. Bush’s nominee possesses is he or she tends to read a lot of John Grisham. Media pundits will point out the real reason the president has nominated Joe or Josephine Shmo is as a sop to the President’s base (which has shrunk in recent polls to five people living in the Louisiana Bayou and regular viewers of Fox News Network).
Both the president and his critics will be extremely interested in maintaining the ethnic, racial and gender balance of the court. This, in effect, limits the pool of candidates to a woman with teased hair who grew up on a small farm and whose maiden name is Day. Presumably if the president and his critics did not get the proper ethnic and racial mix in a person of the same gender, the court would become "unbalanced," sort of like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and could tumble over. Never mind those cynics who believe that, considering some of the court’s decisions, its members have been decidedly unbalanced for some time. One of the president’s conservative supporters, Grover Norquist, has suggested an additional criteria – age. Mr. Norquist not only wants someone who is ultraconservative, but one who will be on the court for many, many years. He has suggested the president consider a pool of 12-year-olds he thinks are promising (maybe Sean Hannity’s kids?)
Media pundits will try and predict whether Mr. Bush’s nominee will be confirmed by the Senate. These same pundits will helpfully point out that, at the mention of the nominee’s name, several Democratic liberals were seen with white foam dripping from their lips. They also will comment on the nominee’s most controversial court decisions when he or she was a member of the judiciary, like the one favoring notification of the husband in all cases of female adultery. This is the case, they will remind us, that the National Organization of Women called an outrage because "what is good for the goose ought to be good for the gander." When outraged, NOW often quotes from Mother Goose.
The media will then look ahead and try to figure out whether Mr. Bush’s nominee would fall solidly into the conservative group on the court led by Justice Antonin Scalia or the liberal group personified by Justice David Souter or the pubic-hair-in-the-Coca-Cola group of Justice Clarence Thomas.
After weeks of debate and uproar and several press conferences where the president announces he is standing by his nominee, the media will determine Mr. Bush does not have enough votes in the Senate to obtain confirmation (or bar mitzvah either). Shortly after the president announces he will stand up and fight for his nominee, the nominee will withdraw. The nominee will cite his or her desire to spend more time with family (despite not seeing any of them in the last 32 years), and a "desire to do what is right for the good of the country." Mr. Bush will then laud the departed nominee’s patriotism, while at the same time forgetting his or her name.
The entire process then will be repeated. Eventually, the president will get someone approved because no one knows anything about them (including the president).
