Stephen Colbert Mocks The House
Stephen Colbert's comedy series on the 435 Congressional districts, while hit and miss, is one of a kind, Politico reports.
Supreme goal: 'No more Mr. white guys'

by Mark Silva

The imminent opening on the Supreme Court offers President Barack Obama a chance to break a mold on the nation's high court:

"The current justices are cut from similar cloth,'' Christopher Eisgruber, provost at Princeton, writes in an essay posted at National Public Radio's Website, "No More Mr. White Guys."

"Every sitting justice was a federal appeals court judge before his or her appointment,'' he writes, noting: "Never before in our nation's history had that been true.

"No sitting justice has ever held elected office,'' he adds. "Political experience was a common credential for justices in the past.

"Nor does the court have much geographical diversity. John Paul Stevens is from Illinois, Anthony Kennedy is from California and Souter is from rural New Hampshire. The other six justices spent their careers in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor. All the justices except Stevens attended either Harvard Law School or Yale Law School (Ruth Bader Ginsburg began at Harvard but finished her law degree at Columbia).

"Does this lack of diversity harm the court?

"Yes,'' he argues. See the essay.

Souter's Successor Will Likely Be A Woman

Supreme Court Justice David Souter has announced he plans to retire from the bench at the end of this year's term. Slate's senior legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick has her eye on a variety of candidates to replace Justice Souter, including many women.