Obama And The Supreme Court

  Twelve of the last 14 U.S. Supreme Court justices were named by Republicans.

  With three of the more liberal justices getting up in years, Democrat Barack Obama may well have the opportunity to name a couple to the nation's highest court.

  The question is who and the Los Angeles Times throws some names out, almost all women for that matter.

  Interestingly, the article points out Obama probably will rely on his own judgement as much as anyones - in contrast to the advice he'll seek with other big appointments.

  Quote: "The lawyer who will have the most influence on court appointments in the Obama administration will be Barack Obama," said Walter Dellinger, a Washington lawyer who represented the Clinton administration before the high court. "He was a highly regarded professor of constitutional law at Chicago, which has one of the most intellectually intense law faculties in this country."

A Harvard Law School graduate, Obama taught for 12 years at the University of Chicago and led classes on voting rights and equal protection of the law. In the Detroit interview, he praised Justices Breyer and David H. Souter, a Republican appointee, as "very sensible judges. They take a look at the facts and they try to figure out: How does the Constitution apply to these facts? They believe in fidelity to the text of the Constitution