President Obama - making lemonade out of a lemon

From an email to Ramesh Ponnuru at the Corner:

Quoting you from the Corner:

"Reading the piece, I began to see the outlines of a grand cross-ideological bargain: Conservatives get to deny Obama the presidency, and in return liberals get to call their fellow citizens racists for the next twenty years. I'll take the deal."

I won't. And I say that as a person who disagrees with Obama on just about every significant issue.

The United States is designed to get by bad (incompetent or corrupt) leaders. Senator Obama, if elected, would probably do 5% things I'd like, 15% things I'd shrug, and 80% things I'd say were bad for the country.

OK- we can get past that. We got past Carter. We got past Clinton. The US can get past anything President Obama does.

What has hurt the US, for generations, has been racial tension. Salvery, the Civil War, Jim Crow Laws, all the way to today with Jesse Jackson and Rev. Wright- racial tension hurts the United States.

'Racism' is a word thrown around that ends debate. You don't argue facts and opinions with a racist.

Should Obama win the Presidency, racial tension stops. Doesn't matter who tries to bring it up- the American Public will take the attitude of "It's over. Any debt has been paid off."

And that's a deal that I'm willing to take.

That's pretty much the way I think. The other thing that I console myself with is that a President Obama could also be shining example for all the other colored folk all over the world and could help eliminate some of their fear and loathing of America.

But that "80% things I'd say were bad for the country" could, as Gullyborg commented yesterday, include three more Ginsbergs on SCOTUS for another two decades:

The two justices most likely to retire in the next four years are Stevens and Ginsburg.

Even if McCain goes for a pair of Sandra Day O'Connor clones (and I admit that may happen with him), two Sandy's in place of JP and Buzzy is a big improvement and gives us a SCOTUS of 4 conservatives and 3 swing votes with only 2 real leftists. If Obama is elected, he will appoint two hard core leftists, resulting in 4-1-4.

With a potential 2 moderates under McCain, odds of only one of them siding with the 4 conservatives are MUCH greater than all three siding with 2 leftists.

But with Obama, all it takes is for Kennedy to agree with the left - and the older Kennedy gets, the more he acts like one of those BOSTON Kennedys.

Even more frightening - after Stevens and Ginsburg, the justice who would likely retire first of the remaining seven is Scalia.

If McCain gets to replace Scalia, he will be under a LOT of pressure from the GOP and constituents to at least replace him with a real John Roberts-type justice (which, again, McCain claims he will do). We might not get a real Scalia, but we won't get a Ginsburg, either. And even with another moderate, that would be 3-4-2, and it would only take 2 of the moderates to side with the 3 conservatives, and at least three of them to side with the left. Odds still good.

If Obama gets to replace Scalia, do you think he would give a crap about maintaining the conservative seat? No, he would put Erwin Chemerinsky on the bench. That would make a solid 5 seat leftist majority with no checks from the right.

With 3 vacancies, McCain would, at worst, keep us fairly close to where we are with SCOTUS. There might be more uncertainty what any one justice in particular might do, but odds would favor coalitions that side with Roberts, Thomas and Alito.

With 3 vacancies, Obama would, at best, give us two hard core leftists and maybe one moderate - that would, in a best-case scenario be like today's court with O'Connor in place of Scalia. At worst, and in all probability, we would have 5 Ginsburgs on the bench.

Any conservative putting judges at the forefront of issues would be NUTS to dismiss McCain.

Sometimes I wish we had term limits for SCOTUS.