484. Obama and the Supreme Court Vacancy

It occurred to me, amid all the criticism already out there, as well as whatever remains to be heard or printed, that it has been a long time since we have had a Constitutional lawyer who practiced and taught Constitutional law who upon arriving in the White House was obliged to make a Supreme Court nomination. I think very few of the forty-four men who have served as Commander-In-Chief of the Republic were more qualified to make such a nomination.

We'd had a number of lawyers who became president. Other that General Washington, the first six were of that ilk, and my guess is, they having formed the Republic, any one or all of them were as or probably more qualified than Obama, especially Jefferson, Madison, and the second Adams.

The years between our country's infancy and the Civil War which threatened its adolescense, most of the presidents were lawyers, but none of them, save James Knox Polk, were of any great merit. (If you do not know a lot about Polk, his four goals and his four accomplishments which, among other things, greatly expanded the United States, you should. After all, he had to beat the venerable Henry Clay of Kentucky to be elected).

After the Civil War, we had a succession of presidents who would better be described as clerks, at best. Most were military heroes; a few were lawyers; fewer were exceptionally qualified to make Supreme Court nominations.

The fin de siecle brought about a change in the calibre of our presidents and a change in the way America saw itself both at home and abroad. This era saw some excpetionally talented and remarkably different presidents. Perhaps, of those forty-four who have served, the most qualified of all to name a Supreme Court Justice was "Big Bill" Taft, properly William Howard Taft, who later became the Chief Justice of the United States and is pictured here in that role. President Taft is, to me, one of the most underrated of the presidents and none of them were or have been more capable than he to make a nomination to the Republic's highest court.

Having said that, Taft's successor, Woodrow Wilson, would rank very close. Since Wilson, I would be hard pressed to say that any of the later 20th-century presidents demonstrated great credentials as someone who could nominate a Supreme Court Justice. Certainly FDR thought he could name not one or two but several. That isn't to say that the justices he and his successors named didn't become great justices - some did, and perhaps a better barometer would be to look at the people they appointed and they served. But this entry is simply about the raw qualifications of making such an appointment.

Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, with whatever faults one may assign them, were students and practicioners of the Constitution. Both were among the most capable to make such a nomination. And that brings us to the current occupant of the presidency, Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and of the Harvard Law School where he served as editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. Before and during his terms in elective office in Illinois he was a Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Chicago School of Law. My belief is these roles, as student, professor, and lawyer, have prepared him to make an appropriate decision as to who the next Supreme Court Justice should be. Further, that outside of the Founding Fathers, he is one of the most qualified presidents ever to make such a decision. And that's a good thing.

Thanks Be To God.