Carol Platt Liebau makes a compelling case in The American Spectator that the GOP is better off picking Supreme Court nominees from the Washington DC talent pool. She notes that Thomas, Scalia, and Rehnquist, who all made their careers in DC, were immune to the blandishments to "grow in office" [also known as the "Greenhouse Effect"]. It is the outsiders like Souter and O'Connor who are tempted to assimilate into the region's dominant intellectual and social culture, and thus move leftward, after joining the court.

Thomas Lifson   7 29 05