Decision Points

misperceptions, Andy made clear that Karl would not be included in national security meetings.

    With my communications team, (
from left
) Dan Bartlett, Dana Perino, and Tony Snow.
White House/Eric Draper
    By the middle of 2006, Republicans were in trouble in the upcoming midterm elections, and the left had unfairly used Karl’s new role to accuse us of politicizing policy decisions. Josh asked Karl to focus on the midterms and continue to provide strategic input. To take over the day-to-day policy operations, Josh brought in his deputy from OMB—Joel Kaplan, a brilliant and personable Harvard Law graduate who had worked for me since 2000.
    I worried about how Karl would interpret the move. He had developed a thick skin in Washington, but he was a proud, sensitive man who had absorbed savage attacks on my behalf. It was a tribute to Karl’s loyalty and Josh’s managerial skill that they made the new arrangement work until Karl left the White House in August 2007.

    While White House staff and Cabinet appointments are crucial to decision making, they are temporary. Judicial appointments are for life. I knew how proud Dad was to have appointed Clarence Thomas , a wise, principled, humane man. I also knew he was disappointed that his other nominee, David Souter , had evolved into a different kind of judge than he expected.
    History is full of similar tales. John Adams famously called Chief Justice John Marshall —who served on the bench for thirty years after Adams left office—his greatest gift to the American people. On the other hand, when Dwight Eisenhower was asked to name his biggest mistakes as president, he answered, “I made two and they’re both sitting on the Supreme Court.”
    Shortly after the 2000 election was decided, I asked my White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales , and his team of lawyers to develop a list of candidates for the Supreme Court. Al was an impressive second-generation American who had worked his way through Rice University and Harvard Law School and earned my trust when I was governor. I told him the Supreme Court list should include women, minorities, and people with no previous experience on the bench. I made clear there should be no political litmus test. The only tests in my mind were personal integrity, intellectual ability, and judicial restraint. I was concerned about activist judges who substituted their personal preferences for the text of the law. I subscribed to the strict constructionist school: I wanted judges who believed the Constitution meant what it said.

    With Al Gonzales.
White House/Chris Greenburg
    For more than eleven years, the same nine justices had sat together on the Court, the longest such streak in modern history. On June 30, 2005, Harriet Miers —who had replaced Al Gonzales as White House counsel when he became attorney general—was informed that the Supreme Court would be forwarding a letter for me from one of the justices. We all assumed it was from Chief Justice William Rehnquist , who was eighty years old and sick. But the next morning Harriet called me with a surprise. “It’s O’Connor,” she said.
    I had met Justice Sandra Day O’Connor many times over the years. The first female justice in the history of the Court, she had an engaging, straightforward personality. I was fond of Sandra and called her immediately after I received her letter. She told me it was time for her to go take care of her beloved husband, John, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s.
    While the vacancy was not the one I expected, we were prepared to fill it. Harriet’s team prepared a thick binder that contained the biographies of eleven candidates, as well as detailed analyses of their writings, speeches, and judicial philosophies. I had a trip to Europe scheduled in early July, and the long hours on Air Force One made for good reading time. After studying the binder, I narrowed the list down to five impressivejudges: Samuel Alito , Edith Brown Clement , Michael Luttig , John Roberts , and J. Harvie Wilkinson .
    Each came to meet me in the White House residence. I tried to put them at ease by giving them a tour of the living area. Then I took them to the family sitting room that overlooks the West Wing. I had read the summaries of their legal opinions; now I wanted to read the people. I was looking for someone who shared my judicial philosophy, and whose values wouldn’t change over time. I went into the interviews hoping one person would stand apart.
    One did.