President Bush Nearly Ready for Supreme Court Pick, Holds Interviews

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jul 18, 2005   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

President Bush Nearly Ready for Supreme Court Pick, Holds Interviews

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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 18, 2005

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — President Bush said Monday that he’s closer to announcing the name of a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court to replace outgoing pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Bush indicated he will be holding interviews soon and the announcement could come later this week.

The president indicated he would meet with some of the people on his short list but not others he already knows well.

"I will sit down with some and talk to them face-to-face, those who I have not known already. You know, we’ve got some people that — perhaps in contention that I’ve already spent time with, that I know; in other words, I’m familiar with some of the people that are being speculated about in the press," Bush explained. "And so I don’t need to interview those."

"My desire is to get this process moving so that someone will be confirmed — whoever he or she is … by October," Bush said at a joint news conference with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Meanwhile, Reuters cites a top Republican strategist close to the White House who indicates the president could name a nominee as early as Tuesday.

"It will happen any day," the strategist said of Bush’s decision to appoint a replacement for O’Connor.

Some political observers are saying that Bush will select a woman to replace O’Connor, who became the first female jurist on the nation’s top court.

First Lady Laura Bush said in a television interview last week that she hopes her husband will pick a woman and observers say that may reflect the current thinking of the president.

"It says that they’re looking very carefully at a woman," a Republican with longtime ties to the White House told the New York Times. "I don’t think she would have said it without knowing something."

Edith Jones and Edith Brown Clement, both of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit are frequently mentioned as the top potential women for a Supreme Court nod. Jones is pro-life and has issued a decision condemning the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.