Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is speaking to the National Rifle Association today, using his remarks to try and define the Supreme Court debate.

It is imperative that President Obama take his time and search for a nominee with the wisdom and grounding to interpret the laws of our great nation – not one who will have a knee jerk desire to ‘empathize’ with the concerns of Americans. Sounds like instead of another Judge Roberts, the President is looking to put Doctor Phil on the Court … Obama is considering including politicians, not judges, among his short-list of Supreme Court nominees. We don’t need a justice on the Court with an ideological agenda.

Just as a reminder, here’s what Steele said about Supreme Court nominees in his final 2006 Senate race debate:

My approach to a Senate nomination by the president for the United States — U.S. Supreme Court is to listen to them and to hear them out and to evaluate their jurisprudence, their, their judicial temperament. I don’t have a litmus test on any issue. I want to be able to take down, take down their words, to listen and engage them.

Steele also confirmed, in that debate, that he considered Justice Clarence Thomas a “hero” and thought it was important that he was “the only African-American on the bench,” and he engaged in a spirited defense of affirmative action. Something to remember if the president does not pick a white, male nominee and this battle takes a turn in that direction.

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