Hillary Clinton for Supreme Court justice!

Hillary Clinton would bring to the U.S. Supreme Court a keen intellectual perspective, a robust appetite for the legal give and take that makes good fodder for judicial decisions, and a personality that would fit well in the current court and help build consensus and respect for constitutional law — a subject she knows very well going all the way back through two impeachment discussions involving U.S. presidents. No doubt her memories of those times, painful and otherwise, would give her a perspective on the constitutional balance of powers that no other sitting justice could equal.

But – oh, yes — she might be running for president. I would be among the first to applaud that decision because she would make a good chief executive. What if, on the other hand, her future (she’s now 67) might be something other than endless trips in the next two years to the coffee shops and pancake houses of Iowa and New Hampshire? Not to mention spending more time with her granddaughter, Charlotte? And would not she have a longer-term, more lasting impact on the direction of our country as a consensus-building Supreme Court justice than as a U.S. president trying to govern in the stultifying, sulfurous atmosphere of a divided Washington?

Well, it’s something to think about as the current woeful Congress departs. Hillary is probably the one person Barack Obama could nominate who would be confirmed in a nanosecond, hopefully because many senators would see her as superbly qualified jurist, but also because some no doubt would like to see a formidable presidential contender removed from the field.