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Originally Posted by JumpinJesus
At the risk of sounding like I don't care about his life or career and thinking that I believe there are those callous enough to be happy about this, I have to say that I'm pretty certain there are some very private high fives being smacked about in the White House tonight.
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Maybe, maybe not. First, I don't think anybody expected Rehnquist to last another 3-4 years in the court. He was pretty sick. So Bush would have been planning for his death or medical retirement in any case.
Second, there was some thought among the pundits that Rehnquist was in fact planning to retire because of illness, but had been holding off until after Bush filled the first vacancy on the court.
The reasoning: Bush would have a harder time pushing really conservative candidates if he were filling two vacancies at one time and the balance of the court was clearly in question. It'd seem more like a power grab from the right, and could be played that way to the people by his opponents; though it is of course Bush's right to nominate who he wants. Having to fill only one vacancy at a time would reduce the political cost for Bush to get exactly who he wanted for his first nominee.
Under this line of reasoning, Bush and compatriots would actually be somewhat dismayed that Rehnquist died too soon: now they'll have a much tougher political fight on their hands. Heck, with Roberts alone, I've already started hearing attack ads against him on radio.