Kozinski For SCOTUS?

The Supreme Court Nomination Blog notes that David Bernstein over at Volokh has a post advocating 9th Circuit conservative Alex Kozinski for SCOTUS. In short, he's brilliant, colorful, a judicial conservative with libertarian leanings, and has a great personal story, as the Romanian immigrant son of Holocaust survivors. I agree with all of that. Just two points of disagreement:

1. While I think a Justice AK would be outstanding and breathe some personality into the stale halls of SCOTUS -- I am not sure if Bush gets any political value from his appointment. He's not Latino, he's not known to be a social conservative so Bush won't get points from the religoright, he's not a woman, and he's from California. Pretty much nil political value, other than the aforementioned Romanian immigrant story. Alright, so maybe marginal benefit with the immigrant community. But nada mucho.

Not to say Justice AK wouldn't be AWESOME on the Court, because I think he would. As a judicial conservative with libertarian leanings myself, he's not a tough sell ideologically.

2. Bernstein thinks AK would splinter the liberal opposition because he's such a 1st Amendment champion that the ACLU would not oppose him. I am somewhat skeptical of that claim, as the ACLU seems to rail against anything Republicans do, and it is moreso the abortion lobby that is really ramping up to tar and feather Bush's nominee.

On the other hand, while I was with the Federalist Society at Berkeley, we got Kozinski to come speak. He simply dazzled a packed house of 200+, mostly raving leftist, law students. Funny, engaging, with a thick Romanian accent that just enhanced his whole delivery. It didn't matter what question they asked him, death penalty, war on terror, Bush, etc. -- he had an answer that was disarming, thoughtful and challenging. (At dinner afterwards he proved to be a pretty downright nice guy as well.) While I don't know whether that anecdote proves Bernstein's point about splintering the opposition, but if a nominee AK could wow Senate Democrats like he did lefty granola Berkeley law students, Bernstein could be right.