I feel funny about doing too much Supreme Court speculating on the basis of someone's fight with cancer. Pancreatic cancer is particularly deadly in general, but it isn't always, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg's appears to have been caught early, so I hope she stays on the court for another couple years at least.
But if she has to retire soon, it sure looks to me like Obama is going to need to give Sonia Sotomayor very serious consideration. She's of Puerto Rican heritage. Obama already lost one high-level Latino appointment, Bill Richardson, and his second Hispanic biggie, Hilda Solis, appears to be in fairly serious trouble.
It seems that her husband had some tax liens filed against his business. He owns an auto repair business, and at issue was about $6,500 in liens he just paid. No indication yet on what kinds of taxes and the nature of this dispute.
More broadly, of course, a Supreme Court fight early in his tenure is something no president particularly relishes, but what will be will be. And Obama might have two, given that John Paul Stephens is pushing 90.
