Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005 9:14 p.m. EDT
Conservatives: Not Gonzales

Maybe President Bush was just joking around to fuel speculation, but conservatives aren't laughing about the president's playful glance at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when he described the list of possible nominees for the second Supreme Court vacancy as wide open.



"No conservative leader supports Al Gonzales and those who say they do are not telling the truth but are afraid of losing White House access, or promised help with fundraising," said Manuel Miranda, former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Senior White House officials do not expect the president to make his choice known this week, and possibly not until after the Senate holds a confirmation hearing that begins Monday for John Roberts, Bush's nominee for chief justice.

Bush has said only that he will nominate a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a "timely manner."

"I really don't know whether it's two weeks or four weeks," Frist said Wednesday.

If Bush wants to wait until after the Roberts hearings are over, that gives him until at least Sept. 20 to make up his mind, if he hasn't already done so. That's the earliest date that Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, says he will call for a committee vote on whether to confirm Roberts.

Burdened with low poll ratings and stung by criticism that the government responded slowly to Hurricane Katrina, Bush might not have the political standing to try to steer the court hard right with his replacement for O'Connor.

Critics have alleged that a memo Gonzales wrote on the treatment of terrorism detainees helped lead to abuses like those seen at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Gonzales might, however, be more palatable to liberals than known hard-line conservative jurists like Edith Hollan Jones, Priscilla Owen, Emilio Garza and Michael Luttig â€â€