WASHINGTON — As President Obama is interviewing candidates for the Supreme Court, prospective nominees are being debated and dissected on blogs and in chat rooms. Conservative groups have posted campaign-style attack ads on YouTube. Counter-strikes are being launched by liberal groups.
The prime targets are Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, who reportedly met with the president this week while in town for a legal conference, and two other women rumored to be on Obama's short list: U.S. Solicitor Gen. Elena Kagan and Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Those three and other possible nominees have undergone deep background checks as part of the selection process, according to a Democratic official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
"Wood ruled that peaceful abortion demonstrators should be punished under the same law that applies to mob bosses," said one Internet ad launched by conservative groups Monday. Another ad, with ominous music playing, says that as dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan "kicked the military off campus during a time of war." In Sotomayor's court, still another ad says, "the content of your character is not as important as the color of your skin."
Fights over Supreme Court picks are nothing new, but this one is taking place with unusual specificity before a nominee has even been announced. That's because speculation about whom Obama will choose focused almost from the start on a small number of prospects.
The battle has been fueled by the Internet.
"I think that the Internet and blogs have been great in terms of being able to distribute information easily," said Thomas Goldstein, a litigator who has argued cases before the Supreme Court and who created the popular SCOTUSblog, which focuses on the high court. "The downside is that there is an equal leveling effect in which totally idiotic wing nuts can go off -- that's true on both the far left and far right. . . . So it contributes to good people being torn apart for no reason."
But those who hope to influence the president's choice say they had to move quickly.
"If you've got a really tough race in front of you, you've got to come out quick," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion advocacy group that participated in the ads.
