‘I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O’Connor, ‘You could help the country now,’ ‘ Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and a pivotal player in any confirmation hearings, said in an interview on the CBS program ‘Face the Nation.’ ‘She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so.’
Although Mr. Specter’s seeming endorsement of the idea was highly speculative – Justice O’Connor, 75, has announced her retirement, while Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, has not stepped down – it was the clearest of his several recent signals that he plans to steer his own course as he oversees hearings on a replacement for Justice O’Connor, independent of the president and of his party’s conservative base.” (New York Times )
