SCOTUS WATCH: Priscilla Owen Front-Runner to Replace Sandra Day O’Connor? REDUX

President Bush participates in a Homeland Security Council meeting, Monday, Sept. 19, 2005, in the Cabinet Room of the White House. At right is Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The ASSociated Press has Who Will Bush Tap As Next Court Nominee?

President Bush’s supporters want him to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor with a rock-solid conservative jurist, but Bush’s low poll numbers have given liberals hope he’ll nominate a moderate to avoid a raucous fight in the Senate.

PLEASE. Do you really think Bush wants to give the LEFT any hope with SCOTUS nominations. The President will appoint HIS nominee not someone who Slow Joe Plagiarising Biden or Water Under the Bridge Teddy Kennedy approves.

The White House won’t discuss the selection process, but some legal experts who talk to Bush administration officials regularly say the president is interviewing new prospects. On Wednesday, Bush meets with top senators from both parties about who should be picked for the lifetime appointment.

Regardless of his choice, the wrenching recovery from the hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast will serve as the backdrop for Bush’s next Supreme Court nomination.

Ironically, a lot of speculation about who will be named is focused on New Orleans, the seat of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Five judges on that bench â€” Priscilla Richman Owen, Edith Brown Clement, Edith Hollan Jones, Emilio Garza and Edward Charles Prado have been floated as possible Bush picks.

Mentioned most frequently in recent weeks is Owen, a former Texas Supreme Court justice who is well known to the Bush family but has been a federal appellate judge only since June. Owen was the subject of a filibuster for the appeals court seat, yet she was confirmed, along with four other controversial judges, under a compromise filibuster agreement crafted by seven Democrats and seven Republicans in the Senate.

Flap handicaps the President’s nominee will be Appeals Court Judge Priscilla Owen.

Robert Novak agrees.

The American Specator is not so sure.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s meeting and the leaks.