8% unemployment was not promised - it was predicted

We can debate the virtues of the stimulus package as to how effective it was, however it's a bit intellectually dishonest to state that there was a promise that unemployment would be 8% if the stimulus package was passed. There was a prediction and it was one that was couched with the reality of the uncertainty of our current economy.

The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is where the chart is that is creating the controversy. Yet if one were to actually read the 14 pages you'd have a different view -- one part:

It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error. There is the obvious uncertainty that comes from modeling a hypothetical package rather than the final legislation passed by the Congress. But, there is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity.

That's not a promise, it's predictions...

We have the same anti -war movement and not the same passion.

If you have wondered what's happened to the anti-war effort after President Obama was elected, you'll want to read - Anti-war groups battle for survival. One part of the recommended piece:

“We don’t have a very vibrant anti-war movement anymore,” lamented Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, one of the anti-war movement’s most visible organizations. “The issues have not changed very much. … Now we have a surge [in Afghanistan] that we would have been furious about under George Bush, yet it’s hard to mobilize people under Obama. We have the same anti -war movement and not the same passion.”

The real question will be what will happen the next presidential cycle.

Can Obama fight the flight from facts?

The flight from facts is one that's hit our nation when it comes to more than just the President, despite the increase of fact checking sites and myth busting, study after study has demonstrated some of our population is mired in only wanting to believe what they want to believe, no matter what the facts truly are.

This Newsweek piece -- How Obama can fight the lies is an recommended read. Part of which:

Our maddening times demand that the truth be forthrightly stated at the outset, and not just that the president has nothing in common with the führer beyond the possession of a dog. The outlandish stories about Barack Hussein Obama are simply false: he wasn’t born outside the United States (the tabloid “proof” has been debunked as a crude forgery); he has never been a Muslim (he was raised by an atheist and became a practicing Christian in his 20s); his policies are not “socialist” (he explicitly rejected advice to nationalize the banks and wants the government out of General Motors and Chrysler as quickly as possible); he is not a “warmonger” (he promised in 2008 to withdraw from Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan and has done so); he is neither a coddler of terrorists (he has already ordered the killing of more “high value” Qaeda targets in 18 months than his predecessor did in eight years), nor a coddler of Wall Street (his financial-reform package, while watered down, was the most vigorous since the New Deal), nor an enemy of American business (he and the Chamber of Commerce favor tax credits for small business that were stymied by the GOP to deprive him of a victory). And that’s just the short list of lies.

Fire and Imagination and...Rain...

Bob Herbert's column Fire and Imagination made me think about James Taylor's Fire and Rain. While the song is about relationships, it fits how I feel about what's happening in our country.

The Obama administration seems to be feeling sorry for itself. Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary, is perturbed that Mr. Obama is not getting more hosannas from liberals.

Spare me. The country is a mess. The economy is horrendous, and millions of American families are running out of ammunition in their fight against destitution. Steadily increasing numbers of middle-class families, who never thought they’d be seeking charity, have been showing up at food pantries.

The war in Afghanistan, with its dreadful human toll and debilitating drain on the nation’s financial resources, is proceeding as poorly as ever. As The Times reported on Friday, an ambitious operation that was supposed to showcase the progress of the Afghan Army turned into a tragic, humiliating debacle.

And while schools are hemorrhaging resources because of budget meltdowns, and teachers are losing jobs, and libraries are finding it more and more difficult to remain open, American youngsters are falling further behind their peers in other developed countries in their graduation rates from colleges and universities.

This would be a good time for the Obama crowd to put aside its concern about the absence of giddiness among liberals and re-examine what it might do to improve what is fast becoming a depressing state of affairs.

We've seen fire and we've seen rain, it's hard not to hope at times that our nation will come back to what it was...


James Taylor - Fire and Rain (live 1970)
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Rolling Stone and journalistic integrity...

Too late to save his job, but as more comes out it appears that some of the material in the Rolling Stone magazine article about Gen. Stanley McChrystal (link) were supposed to be off the record. It should send a huge message to those who like to make comments off the record where they want to be "an un-named source" or "Senior White House staff" that your ability to keep a job and to not face consequences solely remains in the hands of the media and they are not always going to be fair.

As someone who is a fact checker for a weekly newspaper, reading about the fact checking questions that were asked (link) raises some troubling issues. Especially where it was made clear that comments were not supposed to be included. This does tend to suggest that the accusation by some media sources, including the Telegraph (link) that:

So far from this being “terrific journalism” as my colleague Harry Mount put it, the Rolling Stone piece now looks much more like a disgrace to the profession.

The worst thing about this is it won't matter in the long run, Rolling Stone got what they wanted with this story, sensationalism. And it cost someone their job...which only adds to their story. It's also helped add to the impression that President Obama is very thin skinned - (link):

But what do McChrystal's and BP's defenestration tell us about the president of the United States? Barack Obama is a thin-skinned man and, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph, White House aides indicated that what angered the president most about the Rolling Stone piece was "a McChrystal aide saying that McChrystal had thought that Obama was not engaged when they first met last year." If finding Obama "not engaged" is now a firing offense, who among us is safe?

Obama object of hatred from the right and mild disappointment to his allies

Not that many listened, but one of the concerns I had during the whole presidential election process was that too many believed as is quoted in this piece by E.J. Dionne that then presidential candidate was "capable of parting raging seas" -- the unrealistic expectations created by the Obama campaign that people were silly enough not to be able to separate reality from campaign rhetoric. And now? Obama has a problem of his own making. So while I point this out as interesting reading, and recommend the full article:

You wonder if Obama will use this brief respite for reflection to ponder how, in a year, he has been transformed from a man once seen as capable of parting raging seas to the object of a terrible hatred on the right and mild disappointment among his allies. His opponents are on the march, his friends are grumpy.

Obama might fairly repair to the comforting thought that he inherited an unparalleled combination of disasters in the economy and foreign policy, and created such a surge of hope that he was expected, unrealistically, to have put everything right by now.

He will eventually get to claim a great victory on health care. He helped the country avoid financial catastrophe. And isn't he doing pretty well in the polls, given the afflictions of unemployment and other forms of economic carnage?

This line of thinking animates the White House. Obama's aides say it reflects a side of him that many have found attractive: a cool, detached confidence in the long-term that refuses to be disturbed by passing controversies and criticisms.

Yet there is a lesson for the president in the rote quality of his Thanksgiving proclamation that is significant only because it reveals Obama's underlying problem: What the document lacked was any sense of fighting spirit, any larger purpose, any gauntlet thrown down before his foes.

Obama and some Democrats gave the Republicans fodder to attack with and after 8 years of Democrats attacking Bush and Republicans? It should have been expected, very few realists really believed Obama would be this great uniter, we all know what happened to the last president who proclaimed, "I'm a uniter not a divider" -- The problem comes in when people believe the bs thrown about by both sides.

That however is a larger problem...

Geither will not last long into 2010

I admit he was never one of my favorite choices, back in February of 2009, the underwhelming of Geithner was a post topic here.

It still continues, with The Gathering Geithner Storm in Forbes. Part of which:

It was jarring last week to see the Treasury Secretary under intense fire before Congress, being asked to resign for the good of the country. It was more like Prime Minister's Questions in the British Parliament than the more deferential mode we are used to. Timothy Geithner fought back vigorously, but he lost his cool. His team at Treasury was said to be happy to see him showing a little moxie. Unfortunately the episode didn't add to his gravitas, which is in short supply.

Several blog and media outlets are speculating on who would replace Geithner...

Ten pages on the Obama's marraige...

It's amazing with everything going on in the world that there would be a ten page focus on the Obama's marriage...but there is. Which includes the President's complaint that he can't fly his wife with him to New York to enjoy a Broadway show without it becoming political.

Welcome to the presidency...

Interesting piece by Maureen Dowd...

I'm not one of her biggest fans, but I think this column, Fie, Fatal Flaw does raise some points worthy of consideration/discussion. Part of:

In an interview with Alison Smale in The Times last week, Vaclav Havel sipped Champagne in the middle of the afternoon and pricked Barack Obama’s conscience.

Havel, the 73-year-old former Czech president, who didn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize despite leading the Czechs and the Slovaks from communism to democracy, turned the tables and asked Smale a question about Obama, the latest winner of the peace prize.

Was it true that the president had refused to meet the Dalai Lama on his visit to Washington?

He was told that Obama had indeed tried to curry favor with China by declining to see the Dalai Lama until after the president’s visit to China next month.

Dissing the Dalai was part of a broader new Obama policy called “strategic reassurance” — softening criticism of China’s human rights record and financial policies to calm its fears that America is trying to contain it. (Not to mention our own fears that the Chinese will quit bankrolling our debt.)

The tyro American president got the Nobel for the mere anticipation that he would provide bold moral leadership for the world at the very moment he was caving to Chinese dictators. Awkward.

The reality is, it is harder to be President than it is to run for President...That's something everyone should remember...

Media to blame for "overinflated hopes for Chicago"?

One of the most interesting statements made on the whole Chicago not getting even into the next round of Olympic consideration is that the media played a role. It's hard to disagree with the fact that the media did hype up the power of Obama, but then again, they helped to create the whole "Obama is the one" imagery in the first place rather than to cover him as he truly is, a man who was elected president, not someone with magical powers who can by his mere presence wow the OIC into picking Chicago.

In the Chicago Tribune, Ambivalence of hopes it states:

Obama and the rest of Chicago's powerhouse delegation, which included first lady Michelle Obama, Mayor Richard M. Daley and his wife Maggie and the Queen of All Media Oprah Winfrey, were fighting an uphill battle all along.

Expectations were overinflated by the media hoopla. But as the final bidding indicated, the IOC has a mind of its own.

Speculation runs wild as to why Chicago lost. Most of it follows personal agendas. The negatives that various analysts and critics bring up -- crime, corruption and cronyism lead the pack -- are hardly unique to Chicago and are certainly no worse than the problems faced by Rio de Janeiro, the winner of the 2016 Olympics.

Rio took an edge in less tangible ways. Chicago's presentation to the IOC, despite the Obama glitter, was lackluster and disorganized compared to Rio's colorful and passionate presentation.

Brazil played the geopolitical card skillfully, holding up maps that showed South America to be the only region left without a single Olympics. This may have touched the hearts of IOC members, who like to think of the organization as a groundbreaking force for international development and unity.

And how savvy, for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to use a certain Chicagoan's famous slogan when talking to reporters to promote his country's bid: "Yes we can!"

Which really points out the truth as to why Chicago didn't get it, even the power of Obama was not enough to combat a poor presentation....Or maybe they just didn't like Oprah...

President Obama, don't blame bloggers - you are saying people are stupid

While this was reported in the Toledo Blade, I felt it was more appropriate for me to rant here, where I do express my opinion more openly than on Glass City Jungle. I am so tired of hearing crap about how bloggers don't fact check or research. Some of us do and the reality is that it is the readers out there who reward the ones that don't who are to blame more than those of us who not only get very little recognition but have to deal with constantly saying "I'm not that kind of a blogger."

In the Blade's, Newspaper journalism gets words of praise Print media's role vital, Obama says here's what tripped my trigger the most in bold:

"Journalistic integrity, you know, fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting, how to retain those ethics in all these different new media and how to make sure that it's paid for, is really a challenge," Mr. Obama said. "But it's something that I think is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy."

Across the country, newspapers are struggling to maintain readership and advertising revenue that has been lost to the Internet. Thousands of journalists have been laid off, and over the last year several newspapers have closed.

The Rocky Mountain News in Denver ceased operations, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer now publishes only on the Internet, and several large newspaper corporations have filed for bankruptcy, including the Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times

Mr. Obama said he noted the trend. "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," the President said.

"What I hope is that people start understanding if you're getting your newspaper over the Internet, that's not free and there's got to be a way to find a business model that supports that."

Just say it, say that you think people are too stupid to be able to tell the difference between opinion and determine what is credible if it comes from a blog and that magically if it's printed in a newspaper where someone is paid to write it that it somehow means more.

I put over 80 hours a week into my blogging, most of it on Glass City Jungle, I work one day a week as a fact checker for the Toledo Free Press, I care about facts. I am not the only blogger out there who cares about facts, who cares about their credibility and even those who do share more opinion than news, if they don't back up their opinion with facts? It's not rocket science...people should know that...We are not responsible for those out there that believe things that have no factual basis either online or in print.

I don't do it for the money, what I make online does not pay my bills, it doesn't even cover the expenses for the blog, so to try to claim that only those who are paid media can do this fairly is complete and utter bull. The Block family wants to create the ability to earn money from online content, they got the President of the US to state he supports that, that news is not free, which considering people no longer have access to "free news" anymore now that the whole process of this digital adapter being required has turned out to be nothing more than a joke with the only way people can actually access news and information is to subscribe to cable or satellite, perhaps he is telling us something really profound. That those of you who are poor or those of you who live in areas where the internet or digital television reception does not work don't deserve to have access to any other opinions than what the traditional mainstream media wants you to know and you should pay for that...

I disagree...

Animosity Toward Obama is Based on the Fact That He is a Black Man

The comment was made by former President Jimmy Carter. "An Overwhelming Portion of the Animosity Toward Pres. Obama is Based on the Fact That He is a Black Man" is the full sentence quote.

It's created some stir...Jimmy Carter, True Son of the South, Hits Nail on Head by Kai Wright that says in part:

And as a result, a statement as obvious as Carter’s—that the tea-baggers hate President Barack Obama because he’s black—can be passed off as controversy in 2009.

It’s self-evident that a movement that calls the president a lying, socialist, Nazi eugenicist with a fake birth certificate is about something more than deficit spending. People don’t brandish automatic weapons and pray for the president’s death because they want to keep their employer-sponsored health plans. But to name the stalking beast is more than we can bear.

Countered by articles out there like one by Jonah Goldberg, A Tackle Box Full of Race Bait that says in part:

Meanwhile, no significant conservative politician, pundit, or intellectual has said that they object to Obama's agenda because he's black. Rather, they've said they oppose his agenda for precisely the same reasons they oppose Nancy Pelosi's and Harry Reid's and Barney Frank's agendas. They stand athwart Obama yelling "Stop!" just as they did with Clinton and Democratic presidents before him.

Magically, the alchemic powers of Obama's black skin transmogrify the same arguments and the same rhetoric into racism. Saying "you're wrong" to a white politician is a disagreement; saying it to a black politician is like shouting through Bull Connor's megaphone.

I know some of the tea baggers, I can't say I agree with them on all of their positions, frankly a few of them scare me, but I also don't think the ones I know that dislike or even hate Obama are basing it on race. This reminds me of when I didn't support Obama as a presidential candidate, it was suggested I was racist when it had nothing to do with the color of his skin, it had do with the content of his character...Yet it was attempted to be used against me because if they could make the "racist" charge stick then it deflected any arguments I had as to why I didn't feel he was the right candidate for president. I could be ignored as a "racist" rather than have anything I said be considered.

Jimmy Carter was one of my favorite Presidents, but I can't say I agree with him on this one. If Hillary would have been elected and was trying to do the same things President Obama is? I'm willing to bet that not much would be different except that people wouldn't be as up in arms about the first woman President being attacked...

Fact checking the president's speech last night

It's always nice when someone else does it for you, Newsweek has the information from factcheck.org. I highly recommend that you read the whole thing, but the summary:

Summary
President Obama's prime-time address to Congress and the nation on health care prompted a Republican congressman to shout "you lie!" Did he? Here's what we've found:

* Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn't insure illegal immigrants; the House bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally. Conservative critics complain that the bill lacks an enforcement mechanism, but that hardly makes the president a liar.
* The president said "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." But the House bill would permit a "public option" to cover all abortions, and would also permit federal subsidies to be used to purchase private insurance that covers all abortions, a point that raises objections from anti-abortion groups. That's true despite a technical ban on use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion coverage.
* The president repeated his promise that his plan won't add "one dime" to the federal deficit. But legislation offered so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
* The president overstated the degree of concentration in the insurance industry. He said that in 34 states the "insurance market" is controlled by five or fewer companies, but that's true only of insurance bought by small groups, not the entire "insurance market."
* Obama said his plan won't "require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have." It's true that there's no requirement, but experts say the legislation could induce employers to switch coverage for millions of workers.

America turns red, white and green

Interview that caught my attention that I wanted to point out in a recent New Scientist article done by Graham Lawton with President Barack Obama's science adviser John Holdren. Part of that recommended piece:

On a global level, what needs to happen as we approach the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December?

The industrialised nations need to get their acts together before they can expect the developing countries to come on board. We have historically produced a large part of the problem, although the numbers are shifting. Two things are obvious: the industrialised nations have an obligation to lead, and the developing countries have to join pretty soon, or we're going to be cooked.

I believe that if the US can go to Copenhagen with a specific policy in place, the chances are very good that we can get an agreement in which major developing countries make commitments that will move them onto a declining emissions trajectory. They are still waiting for concrete evidence that the US is going to move, but I think if the US does move, we will see a degree of progress at Copenhagen that will surprise people.

Obama says police acted stupidly...

Realistically it would have been smarter for the President to have just stated he didn't have all the facts on the case of the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates rather than what he said that's gotten headlines:

As for Gates, "I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

This of course has created reaction, Crowley's union predicts Obama will regret remarks with it being stated as a clarification from the White House that the President didn't call the officer "stupid" -- which is word games, if you say "the Cambridge police acted stupidly" you are basically calling the officer "stupid" -- at least from what I understand of the word "stupidly":


–adjective
1. lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.
2. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless: a stupid question.
3. tediously dull, esp. due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless: a stupid party.
4. annoying or irritating; troublesome: Turn off that stupid radio.
5. in a state of stupor; stupefied: stupid from fatigue.
6. Slang. excellent; terrific.
–noun
7. Informal. a stupid person.
Origin:
1535–45;
Related forms:
stu⋅pid⋅ly, adverb
stu⋅pid⋅ness, noun

Sotomayor reversal expected...at least by some

It's been interesting following some of the reaction to the Supreme Court decision today that reverses the decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor related to the white firefighters in Connecticut. While some believe it will have an impact on her confirmation hearings, some actually hope it will would probably be a better statement. Yet, according to this CNN Commentary it's not as unusual as some may think:

The reversal was expected and is not the first time an appointee has been reversed by the court he was about to join.

Indeed, two of Chief Justice Warren Burger's opinions for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals were reversed in 1969, the year he joined the court. One was Watts v. United States, in which the defendant had been convicted for threatening the life of the president.

By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that Watts' supposed threats were really nothing but hyperbole. The decision came down one month before President Nixon nominated Burger. More significantly, after Burger had been confirmed, the Court reversed him again, this time in a major case -- Powell v. McCormack.

I also think this piece in Forbes is an interesting one on why Republicans should not oppose Sotomayer.

Obama job approval slipping but not with Democrats

A friend sent me a link to the Gallup Daily and at first glance Obama's approval ratings are dropping, though they are still over 50%. When you look just a bit deeper:

Thirty-three percent of Americans now disapprove of the job Obama is doing as president, just one point shy of his record-high 34% disapproval score from early June.

Since Obama took office in January, his approval rating in Gallup tracking has averaged 63%, and most of his three-day ratings have registered above 60%. Approval of Obama did fall to 59% in individual readings in February, March, April, and early June; however, in each case, the rating lasted only a day before rebounding to at least 60%.

The latest decline in Obama's approval score, to 58%, results from a drop in approval among political independents as well as among Republicans. Democrats remain as highly supportive of the president as ever.

Obama's approval rating was 60% from June 13-15, at which time 88% of Democrats, 60% of independents, and 25% of Republicans approved of the job he was doing. In the June 16-18 polling, Democrats' approval of him stands at 92% -- up slightly -- whereas approval is down among both independents (by seven points) and Republicans (by four points).

It's interesting if you compare the approval rankings of other Presidents as to what their highest approval rating was - as an example, George Bush's highest approval rating was in 2001 at 90%.

From wiki:

Highest approval rating

George W. Bush holds the record with 90% (9/21-22/2001 -- after the September 11 attacks).
George H. W. Bush is second highest, with 89% (2/28/-3/3/1991 -- after the Persian Gulf War).
Harry S Truman is third highest, with 87% (6/1-5/1945 -- after V-E Day).
Franklin D. Roosevelt is fourth highest, with 84% (1/8-13/1942 -- after Pearl Harbor).

Lowest approval rating

Harry S Truman holds the record, at 22% (2/9-14/1952 -- during the Korean War).
Richard Nixon is second lowest, with 24% (7/12-15/1974, 8/2-5/1974 -- during Watergate).
George W. Bush is third lowest, at 25% (10/3-5/2008, 10/10-12/08, 10/31-11/2/08 -- during the Late 2000s recession).
Jimmy Carter is fourth lowest, with 28% (6/29-7/2/79 -- during the Iran hostage crisis and ensuing Operation Eagle Claw).

Lowest maximum approval rating during the president's time in office

Richard Nixon holds the record with 67% (1/26-29/1973).
Ronald Reagan is second lowest with 68% (5/8-11/1981).
Barack Obama is third lowest with 69% (1/22-24/09).
Bill Clinton is fourth lowest with 73% (12/19-20/1998).

Governing is different from campaigning

Perhaps it's because I've become more cynical each year that I cover politics both nationally and locally, but one of the issues I kept pointing out during this past presidential election was that the promises being made, that people were basing their reasoning for voting on were not going to happen. This doesn't necessarily mean that I think that John McCain would have been a better president, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that we as a nation have allowed hype and false promises to exist because we keep buying it...

Now we are entering the end of the honeymoon period with President Obama and some more to the right are taking issue with him on Gitmo and some more on the left are taking issue with his recent decision to not support the Justice Department criminally prosecuting at least one Bush administration official for torture, as a token gesture.

Though I have to say, it's rather stupid to have a meeting supposedly "off the record" when it's clear more than a few sources talked about what happened that was supposed to be "private" -- another lesson learned for today's time -- very little is private.

What bothered me most wasn't that Obama has changed his position from what he campaigned on when it comes to any of these issues, I expected it. This part of the Newsweek article bothered me:

At another point, Obama surprised some of those present by suggesting that his aides had received poll results showing that the American people were still behind him on national security and the war on terror. Obama told the group that the poll showed "50 percent believe Obama is doing more to protect security than Bush had," one source present said. Only 25 percent of those polled thought Bush had done more to protect security, according to the figures cited by Obama, the source added.

Asked about the poll, White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the White House does not conduct polls. Pressed on where the figures the president cited came from, LaBolt said the White House does not normally comment on what takes place in private meetings.

You can't govern by polls, especially since most polls are junk. That demonstrates he's still more concerned with how people view him than he should be, the campaign is over...Being President of a nation such as ours where people are so quick to want to believe when it comes to campaigning yet also so quick to throw stones when you are elected is a challenge...

President Obama at the Press Correspondents Dinner

He is funny...Part one and part two for those of you wanting to see more than the few clips that the traditional media is showing.

The Supreme Speculation begins...

Now the games begin as far as who will be considered to be appointed to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Souter, then the game aspect of what dirt can be dug on those suggested and will they make it through the congressional confirmation process. Not all have fared well in the past with a long line of those who briefly held promise. As you can see by this Washington Post piece, names are already being circulated:

Judge Sonia Sotomayor (born 1954), U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Sotomayor was nominated to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in a deal with New York senators in 1991 and elevated to the appeals court in 1998 by President Bill Clinton. She could become the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court. Conservatives have raised questions about her role in upholding a decision by the city of New Haven, Conn., to throw out a firefighter promotions test because no African Americans qualified. The case is now before the Supreme Court.

Judge Diane Wood (born 1950), U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Wood worked at the antitrust division of the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, and she was nominated to the appeals court by Clinton in 1995. She knows Obama from her days as a professor at the University of Chicago law school, where he also taught. Wood, who will turn 60 next year, is the oldest of the candidates frequently mentioned for the court, where the trend has been toward younger justices who would serve for years in the lifetime appointment.

Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw (born 1954), U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Wardlaw worked for the Clinton Justice Department transition team and was nominated by Clinton as a federal judge in 1995, then elevated to the appeals court in 1998. She is a liberal judge on the nation's most liberal appeals court, and she also had a role in a case now before the Supreme Court. She wrote the appeals court decision that said Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old middle school student who was strip-searched in an unsuccessful effort to find drugs.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan (born 1960). Kagan was confirmed by the Senate to her new job in March on a 61-31 vote and has yet to argue a case at the court. Her confirmation process was more difficult than some had predicted, as Republican senators accused her of avoiding their questions. In the background was the thought that Kagan might be Obama's first nominee to the court. She is the former dean of the Harvard Law School, worked in the Clinton administration and worked with Obama, although not closely, at the University of Chicago.

Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears (born 1955). Sears was appointed by then-governor Zell Miller in 1992 and later became the first woman elected in a contested statewide race there. In 2005, she became chief justice, and in the process, became the first African-American woman in the nation to head a state supreme court. Although her current term runs until the end of 2010, Sears has announced she will step down from the job at the end of June.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (born 1959). Granholm (D) has encountered political trouble in her state because of the collapsing economy but was seen as a rising Democratic star. Born in Canada, Granholm is a Harvard Law graduate who served as attorney general before winning election as governor in 2002. She frequently campaigned with Obama during the presidential campaign.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (born 1956). Patrick (D) worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and served as assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Clinton Justice Department, 1994 before becoming a corporate lawyer. He was elected governor in 2006 and has had a rocky time in the job, but he is well-liked in the civil rights community.

Judge Ruben Castillo (born 1954), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Castillo is a former assistant U.S. attorney for Chicago and was counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. He was nominated to the bench by Clinton in 1994.

Kathleen Sullivan (born 1955). Sullivan is a constitutional scholar and former dean of Stanford Law School who has been an active advocate for abortion rights and gay rights. She more recently has represented business interests before the court and remains director of Stanford's Constitutional Law Center.

Harold Hongju Koh (born 1954). Koh is dean of the Yale University Law School but has been nominated by Obama to be legal adviser to the State Department. He formerly worked in the Office of Legal Counsel and as an assistant secretary of state. His current nomination is under fire from conservatives who criticize his view on international law and its applicability to U.S. judicial decisions.

This is of course not a complete list, National Journal as well as other media sources out there have other names. One thing they do seem to agree on though is that Sotomayor could have problems if she is the one selected and if nothing else? Has a target on her back already...