It's those 106 that have been the "cookies", Matthew; the 4 "odd" ones were the raisins. Obama is expected to mix in some more raisins into that dough.

obviously obama needs to pick jefferson beauregard sessions to replace souter...

Help! I'm being oppressed!

When ol' Chris gets too wound up ( the days he forgets his meds)I have to turn him off. He is just the same as the Jerry Springerfied talking heads on all the political shows...just tring to throw fuel on the fire , trying to get the guests to say somthing outrageous

Oh, come on. Supreme Court appointments are subject to the exact same demographic calcualtions as vice-presidential candidates and less important Cabinet secretaries are. It's all about filling some kind of "slot" now. A conservative female governor, or a Latino moderate, or a liberal from a Midwestern state, or maybe a token member of the other party.

I've seen some editorials calling for an unconventional choice. Here's an unconventional suggestion: pick the most qualified jurist for the job.

Simon: He wouldn't do it just because, but if you're asking if there was a qualified Latina out there would he ...
Matthews: Well, there is one.

This is one reason Matthews drives me up a wall. He has no idea who is qualified, or what makes someone qualified for the position, but there's a name out there that is Latina, and since his analysis never ever goes deeper than that, she fits the bill. I suspect by "cookie cutter" he means black, Hispanic, female or gay. Outside the box would be Asian, hearing impaired or Russian Orthodox.

Tweety Matthews is an asshole who has not the vaguest idea of what he ever talks about.

Tweety Matthews is just another corporate media talking head in love with his own voice.

BUT the thing that I detest the most about Matthews is that he is in love with 'the game of politics' and does not give a shit about our country.

i am confused...does this mean he is expected to nominate a gingerbread man or woman?

given that there have been a wee bit more than 100 justices in 230+ years, there is nothing cookie cutter about selecting for the court.

plus, does anyone here think that obama would choose a "minority" candidate (sorry ladies, your 51% still renders you a minority) and then just leave it out there as if the person was less than qualified. I am not expecting Harriet Myers from Obama.

Plus, it is a given that the person will support the wholsesale slaughter of puppies and abortion rights, we will have the spectacle of white GOP men questioning a woman's qualifications after unanimously confirming the most recent two white man.

two words: gender. gap.

go team obama

eric

If Obama can't put a Native American on the Supreme Court, can SCOTUS implement a program where a certain number of clerkships are set aside for Native American lawyers?

The federal courts have a history of not considering the Native American perspective.

mmmmmmm, Cookies!;>

Supreme Court appointments are subject to the exact same demographic calcualtions as vice-presidential candidates and less important Cabinet secretaries are.

Based on what? Note that this hasn't actually happened yet, despite the wringing of hands from the deeply concerned.

And you speak as though there's a clear way to tell if one appellate judge is "more qualified" than another. Sheesh.

Chris Matthews needs medication for attention deficit disorder; then he might be able to let someone else finish a sentence and control the tendency to blurt out whatever loose associations pop into his mind.

I hope Obama selects a male Caucasian Protestant. Then, when the pundits have strutted for a while, claiming that they stopped Obama from cookie cuttering, I hope the nominee goes to Massachussets to marry his partner of 20 years.

As a mid-40's white male, I sincerely hope that Obama appoints a woman for each and every SC vacancy that comes up during his term.

I hope Obama nominates Condi Rice for the position.

She had demonstrated an understanding of the Constitution and an appreciation of our laws.

Plus, she would fill three quotas - female, black, lesbian.

/snark

As usual the RepoTaliban mouthpiece has a brain mouth disconnect.
The cookie cutter for SOCTUS is White Male born to or risen to the wealthy class.
Female, hispanic is not cookie cutter.
So Mathews disporves his own claim.

Either that or he needs to define what his definition of "cookie cutter" means and under which specific circumstances that definition applies.

I suspect that Obama will be careful to pick a lawyer of judge who will meet the approval of the ABA (which is notoriously conservative). That will not stop the nashing and wailing of the RepoTaliban, but it will make them look even more substancless than they already do.

Liberals love to whine that we should pick an Afro-American, a Spanish person or a lady when the choice is between one of them and an "equally qualified" white man.

What you guys will never admit is that 99 times out of 100, the "equally qualified" white man is actually far more qualified.

This time, Orrin Hatch and Jeff Sessions have your number. Enjoy the ride you've got in store for you. You asked for it.

I caught Tweety's act Friday afternoon, when he was chirping about how there's been a "Jewish seat," a "black seat," and a "woman's seat" on the court. He went on for so long about what a change it would be to have two women on the court that I had to wonder if he forgot that O'Connor and Ginsburg served on the court at the same time.

And may I take this opportunity to once again THANK ALMIGHTY GOD Matthews didn't decide to run for Senator here in Pennsylvania?

I don't get this guy's appeal at all. The last time he showed up on Countdown he had a huge streak of drool down his chin. This struck me as a highly appropriate metaphor for his entire being.

Myke K has a point that " the "equally qualified" white man is actually far more qualified" - as long as you believe that more qualified means being a white male!

'Equally qualified' is purely a subjective determination. I defy Myke K to provide an objective means of determining qualifications for the supreme court.

Myke K has a good point about the equally qualified white man being actually far more qualified - as long as you accept that being more qualified means being a white male!

I defy Myke K or any other trolls to provide an objective means of determining qualifications to the supreme court. Any set of 'qualifications' will always include some major amount of subjectivity.

I've seen some editorials calling for an unconventional choice. Here's an unconventional suggestion: pick the most qualified jurist for the job.

I'm so old, I remember a time when Clarence Thomas was the single most qualified member of the legal profession with appellate experience not already sitting on the Supreme Court.

I don't know how one could identify the "best" potential justice out of the many reasonable possibilities, but if that person happened to be a white male, I would hope he received fair consideration. I'm as aware as anyone else that white males have been overrepresented, but two wrongs don't make a right. I'm more concerned with intellect, qualifications, and philosophy than I am with race or gender. I'm sure most of us would prefer another Stephen Breyer to another Clarence Thomas.

Hell, I can remember as if it were yesterday when Harriet Miers was the single most qualified member of the legal profession with appellate experience not already sitting on the Supreme Court.

I've seen some editorials calling for an unconventional choice. Here's an unconventional suggestion: pick the most qualified jurist for the job. Posted by: ArkPanda on May 5, 2009

There are two critical fallacies underlying this logic.

First, is the assumption that there is a single "most qualified" jurist for the job. This is not a piecemeal job, there is no objective measure of performance or qualification. Almost everything about it is subjective: which is "more qualified," a Yale grad or a Chicago grad? A professor, someone who litigates before the Supreme Court, a state AG or a circuit court judge? Reasonable people disagree. There may be a hundred candidates in the same "cloud" of qualifications.

Which brings us to fallacy #2: that nothing matters but the measurable qualifications, that is, that diversity for its own sake is of no value. So long as the picks are roughly equal (see #1), in a diverse society there is judicial benefit to having different experiences and jurisprudential viewpoints represented. It used to be fairly common to have a Justice with some state or federal legislative background in their past -- they had a feel for the reality of how law is made. Is it best to have nothing but Harvard and Yale grads? And one need look no further to the high school strip-search-for-tylenol case to see a very different perspective between the male jurists and Justice Ginsberg.

Having a court that looks at least a little more "like America" is not a bad thing just because it has the side effect of being good politics. It is also good policy, good jurisprudence, and adds to the broad public legitimacy of the courts. And it can be accomplished without sacrificing the ideas of the "most qualified jurist" (assuming we could ever even agree on what that means or how it can be determined).

There's the bold choice--Harriet Miers! Legal experience and a woman who thinks George W. Bush is something close to a god. Talk about filling minority niches!

We want Harriet! We want Harriet!

Nice try zeitgeist, but realistically, your sane approach doesn't neatly fit into a typical asshole's smug platitude about qualifications, as if the typical asshole would know what they were.

I'm sure most of us would prefer another Stephen Breyer to another Clarence Thomas.

I'd prefer, even more, another Sandra Day O'Connor or Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I'm with kvenlander in hoping Obama appoints a woman every chance he gets. If the Court had for decades consisted of 7 women/2 men, just imagine the hue and cry from the Right for more "balance" (and to hell with qualifications)!

How can anyone stand to watch this guy. Mathews lost his mind a long time ago...unfortunately his ego remains intact. He really believes he's relevant and irreplaceable. He makes rudeness an art form. If you want to be irritated just turn on Mathews.

>i?to characterize it as some kind of political-payback scheme is just nutty.

In the Bush/"the K street project" era the GOP had been reduced a hyper efficient soulless revolving door job machine, but even Bush didn`t get Harriet Miers on the supreme court.

Quality of jurists should not be an issue. It is imperative that we expand the Supreme Court so it reflects the diversity of America. We need not only black and Hispanic jurists chosen on skin color, and women, but Moslems, Hindus, gays, lesbians, pseudo-hermaphrodites, dogs, cats, mountain gorillas (while we have no significant population of mountain gorillas, they are PC and should be represented), illegal aliens, Catholics, Evangelicals, union leaders, and so forth, no white males.

Every day I turn into Rachel Maddow, I keep waiting for the announcement by MSNBC that Matthews had a fatal heart attack/was the sad victim of a drunk driver/fell over a cliff/was found face down bleeding out from a large-caliber exit wound in a dark alley.

He's just suck a goddamned embarassment, the way he's so futhermucking STUPID!!!