we never thought william rehnquist would go when he did.chris: i get the feeling, helene, that he's thinking about representation on this court, not just jurists, but being proportional about our society. there's no african-american male, except clarence thomas on that court and he's a conservative. will he go that way? >> i think he easily could. i think the beauty of this for president obama right now is he can do anything he wants right now with his next seat. he's punched the hispanic ticket and he pretty much has the freedom to go anywhere he wants. i think it's totally likely that he will go with a woman or with an african-american. i'd be kinds of surprised to see if he ends up with a white male, but he can do that, too. chris: not a completely easy shot. the conservatives are still angry about bourque, 30 years ago. >> his second pick will be much, much tougher, assume egg has a second pick. they've taken their shots at this nominee. but they knew from the start she was going to get through. the next time around, depending on how th

we also have her husband, a future chief justice, william rehnquist. it is worth mentioning that arizona state changed the name of its law school to the sandra day o'connor school of law, and the other thing we know about her from the session yesterday is that she continues to consider herself an unemployed cowgirl. i would like to also say that she is a member of a cowgirl hall of fame. [laughter] we also have with us -- you are getting low billing here. bishop a jakes is a televangelist, but before that, he started his own church at the age of 22. he was able to go on television a few years later. his church, even in this city, where extraordinarily large churches of bound and nearly everyone goes to church. he and his parishioners have worked on hurricane relief, orphanages on south africa, and he offers financial advice to his flock. he has written more than 30 books, including some of what publishers call novels. more like parables. two of which have been made into movies. he talked about the need to rescue hidden deposits of britain's that are co

you can see that some of the more controversial ones include william rehnquist in 1986, a 65-33. clarence thomas, 52-48. and then john roberts, 782-22. 58-22 for judge justice alito. that is all in "the wall street journal" this morning. wisconsin, independent. caller: i'm interested with all the partisan bickering we have going on this morning and we have not even heard the hearings get. she has not even been asked a question yet. it seems really over the top. i have a question about your guest on friday. she made a racomment about tryig to release terrorists into the streets of america. i think somebody has got to challenge that when that stuff comes out on your airwaves. that is crazy. i hope the judge gets a fair hearing and answers a questions and then i will make up my mind. host: at c-span.org, we have a whole area devoted to judge sonia sotomayor's confirmation hearings. there is a list of majority and minority witnesses. they include michael bloomberg and when the chavis -- linda chavez. long island, joe, independent. gcaller: i would like to apologize for the earlier ca

it and on the other hand you could say there is the view of the true intellectual, or justice william rehnquist in the 1970s, which ultimately become in many cases the law of the land and justice thomas is staking out a bit of that territory, not being afraid to be the lone dissenter of the voting rights act case or the strip search case, and it is unclear to me which is the right way to be, but that is a really powerful question that is set up by the voting line, the opinions written in these cases, but the very interesting thing about chief justice robert's decision is it doesn't come away very pleased. >> one thing i have never understood since the moment the decision came out is the commentators have said the statutory interpretation argument doesn't make any sense. my friend and foe clerk wrote a blog saying i must be a mad genius for getting to along with that. there is a series of cases in the 70s where the court said that limitation on the definition of political subdivision doesn't apply because it would limit the act. in case after case, that definition was set aside in favor of a bro