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Sununu Says Souter Was Not His First Pick; Speaking of the Man, Saw Him the Other Day at Shaw's, Souter That Is...

By DEAN DEXTER

In a recent Concord (N.H.) Monitor interview, former White House Chief of Staff, and N.H. Governor John Sununu reveals his first pick for the Supreme Court vacancy created with the resignation of William Brennan in 1990 was not fellow Granite Stater David Souter, at all, but a conservative female Texas judge, believing it would be a feather in Bush 41's cap to appoint the second woman justice to the high court. Sununu, says he took it at face value that Souter was a conservative, since that's how Souter ruled while on the bench in New Hampshire, and what he presented himself to be in the White House vetting process. Of course, Souter turned out to vote with the Court's liberal wing the majority of the time, until his retirement this Spring (click here).

Speaking of Souter, we ran into him the other day at the Concord (N.H.) Shaw's supermarket. He was roaming the aisle by himself, wearing a starched blue Oxford shirt, sans tie, and casual green slacks, probably L.L. Bean. He had his little basket and looked very serious. We did not approach him, as we are not acquainted (although we met once years ago, when he was state attorney general). We were struck, however, by how short he was, and how much he bore a likeness to an older version of that fraudulent poser from Massachusetts, Clark Rockefeller (aka Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter), when the ex-justice put on his horned-rimmed glasses to inspect the canned peas.

Okay...you would've had to have been there...

-- Posted July 26, 2009

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