Diane Wood for SC Already Under Attack

The National Review (NRO) hates that Diane Wood acclaimed the humanity of gays in questioning the Christan Legal Society, an anti-abortion and anti gay outfit, during oral arguments in Christian Legal Society v. Walker, No. 05-3239.

Wood, a justice on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh District is considered a leading candidate for Justice Souter's seat.

Bigotry and discrimination are not "about hatred, it is about love. To tell something, somebody something that's wrong is right is not loving, and that's what this chapter would be doing," said the CLC attorney. The NRO's Ed Whelan writes this exchange shows Wood "displayed a hostility to orthodox Christian beliefs."

Trying to fire up the religious right just maybe.

This nomination fight is going to be more fun than I thought, and I thought it was going to be a lot fun!

The NYT has a profile on Diane P. Wood who is drawing attention as a leading candidate to fill Justice Souter's expected vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wood famously (in Wisconsin) voiced disgust towards Stephen Biskupic, former U.S. Atty for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, who launched several political prosecutions during his tenure with the Bush administration's Department of Justice, including the political prosecution of an innocent woman, Georgia Thompson, and GOP-inspired voter fraud prosecutions.

"It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin; I’m not sure what your actual theory in this case is,” said Wood to Biskupic.

Of the GOP voter fraud obsession, the New York Times reported Wood saying of a Biskupic prosecution (many of which were overturned): "I find this whole prosecution mysterious. I don't know whether the Eastern District of Wisconsin goes after every felon who accidentally votes. It is not like she voted five times."

Reads the NYT profile

WASHINGTON — When President Bill Clinton had a rare opportunity in 1995 for a Democratic president to fill a vacancy on the federal appeals court based in Chicago, a bastion of conservative thinking, he received an unusually strong recommendation from Senator Paul Simon.

Mr. Simon, an outspoken liberal from Illinois who died in 2003, told the president the new judge should be a reliable progressive who would be cerebral enough to go up against the court’s two formidable conservatives, Judges Richard A. Posner and Frank H. Easterbrook. He said it should be Prof. Diane P. Wood of the University of Chicago law school.