As the second term begins ...

In 2006, two years before he ran for president, then-Senator Barack Obama sat down with Alliance for Justice for an interview.  It was part of our First Monday documentary, "Quiet Revolution."  Now, as President Obama begins for his second term, we present excerpts from that interview:

The entire documentary is available here.

Everything you always wanted to know about judicial selection – but were afraid to ask the Obama Administration

Robert Kuttner

Got time for a good read this weekend?  Then check out the current issue of The American Prospect.  Robert Kuttner has a superb article about the entire judicial selection process, the errors made by the Obama  Administration during the president’s first term, and what needs to be done now to get the process back on track.

The story is a great primer on exactly how the judicial selection process works, an insightful analysis of why so much ground was lost during the president’s first term, and an important call to action.  As AFJ President Nan Aron says in the story: 

The administration needs an all-hands-on-deck approach this term, including a more active role by the Justice Department, a task force in the White House dedicated to finding and confirming nominees for every vacancy, and, most importantly, a more assertive personal role for the President himself. 

You can read the full story here

Video highlights from AFJ's Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin

We've put several excerpts from AFJ's Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on our YouTube page.

In addition to the portion of the discussion dealing with DOMA and Proposition 8 (also available on this Blog here) there's a discussion of the impact of the three women justices on the Supreme Court, and a dialogue about presidents and the court.

There's also the answer to the question: Did Justice Scalia really call Justice Thomas "a nut"?

The entire video is at www.afj.org