I think Bush should have selected whoever he thought would do the best job. Sure, it would have been nice if they were a minority/female/whatnot, but that's not the important part about the supreme court.

Not wrong at all. The President should choose the person he best thinks can do the job. No preference should be given to woman or minorities.

Bush haters will have to admit, he has placed more minorities in high places than anybody. They can not be considered tokens in the positions they are holding for the first time in history.

I personally think a mulatto parapalegic epileptic with AIDs, a tic in HER right eye, and a single digit IQ should have been put in there to represent.

Happy?

Should Pres. Bush have selected [highly qualified and experienced legal professionals] for the Supreme Court?

Yes.

The first shield to any Supreme Court nominee are qualifications. We can define that as being one able to pass the bar, one who has delivered rational, progressive, originalist rulings, or one who best serves the public temperment at that time.

We must understand the phrases," best person for the job" or "most qualified person" are loaded definitions without absolutes at worst and wholly subjective at best.

How this applies to minorities is ridiculous; race and sex should not be a factor, this is probably what leads to the answers previously and generously offered by JU members and possibly the American public at large.

Some will feel a need to ascribe value to a possibly different perspective maybe offered exclusively by 'minorities' (yeah, women a minority in America when they are the largesse of the population, the highest percentage of consumers and the highest percentage of all undergraduates throughout American campuses - I think not), but applying the law in just manner and with regard to common sense is a better requisite for any new supreme court justice applicant.

Not that the requisite mentioned will ever be one the senate will ever go by. Instead, how best will the applicant will possibly serve one party or another will be the gold standard in every supreme court nominee scenario - just in case nobody ever knew.