Opinion: Message to Obama: Swing for the Left-Field Fence With Court Nominee

(April 24) -- President Barack Obama should nominate whomever he wants for the Supreme Court. Don't try to make Republicans happy. They're never going to be happy until they're back in power.

And they won't be back in power until they reach beyond angry white men, figure out what to do with the tea partyers and find candidates and spokespeople who are not cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. (Are you listening, Michele Bachmann?)

As it is now, if Obama is for it, Republicans are against it -- even if they used to be for it. Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown was for Obama's health care plan when it was former Gov. Mitt Romney's health care plan. Apparently, support for universal health care coverage is only operative when Republicans are running the universe ... or at least the state of Massachusetts.

Another View:

President Obama should pick a nominee who unites the country, not one who further divides it, says David McIntosh, founder of the Federalist Society.

If Obama rescued a child from a burning building, his detractors would want to know what he was doing in a burning building when he should be attending the funeral of the Polish president. Or fixing the economy.

After all, he gets criticized for the most mundane actions. He's already been raked over the coals for playing golf and for taking his wife out to dinner when he could have been going to a funeral or fixing the economy.

If Obama found a cure for cancer, Republicans would question why he would dare to use taxpayer dollars to do what the private sector should do. And it's a socialist cure anyway. Besides, while he was busy curing cancer, he could have been at an important funeral or fixing the economy.

So being cautious about his court pick to please and appease Republicans isn't going to win him any friends on the other side of the aisle. As one White House official told Talking Point Memo's Christina Bellantoni, "It doesn't matter who he chooses, there is going to be a big 'ol fight over it. So he doesn't have to get sidetracked by those sorts of concerns." (Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., refused to take a no-filibuster pledge when asked, although he did say that a GOP filibuster of an Obama nominee is "unlikely.")

When the president sent an olive branch to Republicans by inviting them to the White House to find common ground on health care legislation, Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Minority Leader John "Armageddon" Boehner, R-Ohio, released a letter to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel questioning Obama's sincerity. Boehner went so far as to call it "a setup.

Tom Fitton of the conservative Judicial Watch told Bellantoni that there were no acceptable names on Obama's short list, which reportedly includes Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. John McCain, angry about health care reform, vowed after its passage, "There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year."

That makes it rather difficult for the president to do just about anything. Even find a cure for cancer.

Alan Colmes is host of the syndicated "Alan Colmes Show," a contributor to Fox News and founder of Alan.com.

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