He should pick the best person for the job - period. There is no obligation for SCOTUS to demographically "look like America". All men, all women, all straight, all gay, all black, white, Asian, Hispanic, all Christian, Jewish, Muslim, athiest, etc., any combination of the above is fine.

Balancing the makeup of the court seems all well and good, provided there are similar pools of qualified candidates of each sex.

But what difference could it make?

If these folks are judges ruling on matters of law, and matters of law are "gender neutral" according to our 14th amendment, the sex of the ruling judges shouldn't have an effect on how they rule.

Personally, I think creating a litmus-test based on the candidate's sex is far worse than creating one based on their legal decisions.

To be clear, I'd be all for another female SC justice, and I'm not that particular about her beliefs. We should make an effort to be conscious about what we'd be "accomplishing" by putting another female in the SC.

I'm not a fan of tokenism, and that's what this sounds like to me.

Expect Senator Snowe to be villified by her own party, and become a Democrat.

There is no one "best person for the job." There are, very conservatively, dozens of justices and lawyers in this country with obviously SCOTUS-worthy curricula vitae. There are conservatively hundreds, if not thousands, of lawyers and judges in this country who are very well qualified to be a Supreme Court justice. In fact, constitutionally, there are no qualifications for a justice. Unlike most judicial offices, a justice of the Supreme Court does not legally have to have any legal training or be admitted to any bar--although almost everyone would agree that those are essential. And qualified women have rapidly risen through every rank of the legal profession--today in most law schools, more women are admitted than men.

Moreover, the cases that come before the supreme court are not a matter of deciding what is, a priori, legally "right or wrong," apologies to you natural law fans out there. They are tough cases of new law where disagreement exists across the country. Deciding these cases is not an academic exercise, but requires policy, practical, and yes, ideological considerations.

So although it is an appointed office, it all the more important that the President take into account the personal aspects of his appointee--not to be an aesthetic palette of gender and race, but to ensure that the people at the table deciding these incredibly important decisions that affect all Americans are able to consider the effect on all Americans.

So while the President should not rule out a potential candidate based on sex alone, the fact of the matter that there is a single, ancient woman suffering from cancer on the Supreme Court can and should dictate that the President look to fill Souter's seat with a woman. Women are half of America. Women's issues come before the Supreme Court on a daily basis. It is a matter of fact that an all-male supreme court is at a great handicap to American law with respect to the law regarding gender and sexual issues.

I don't mean disrespect, but your lack of legal training is obvious. Equal protection and the 14th amendment does NOT make the law gender-neutral--the law is anything but, and there is no Equal Rights Amendment. Gender and sex may be "suspect classes," but that does not make the law neutral with respect to them. There are thousands of statutes and common law rules at the federal and state level that discriminate based on sex, it is a huge area of law, and makes up a disproportionate amount SCOTUS cert petitions.

If gender and sex are "suspect classes" at law, ensuring that there are even one or two women on the Supreme Court of our land is hardly tokenism!

I don't think there's a real shortage of qualified candidates of EITHER sex.

This is only anecdotal observation here, it seems like an abnormally large percentage of the judges that get ELECTED in Orleans Parish are black women. Granted, New Orleans is a majority black city and more black women than black men continue their educations beyond high school, but there are still far more white male lawyers than black female ones.

Yet, when it comes to APPOINTED positions, they're almost always white and male.

I mean, 18 year olds are horribly under-represented in government. Can you name even one?

And we've got a lot of lesbians too, but so far no one in government has come out as being a lesbian.

And fat. The only woman on the court is very skinny. Where's the love for fat chicks?

Paraplegic would nice too. How many Justices are handicapped? Maybe paraplegic, blind, and deaf.

So if Obama can find the 18 year old fat lesbian paraplegic, he should IMMEDIATELY appoint her to the Supreme Court.

Or just a hot 18 year old. I could learn to live with that, too.

Here’s a novel idea, how about picking the best qualified person for judge. If that person happens to be Hispanic, great. If that person happens to be a women, great. If that person happens to be a white man, great. This country can never achieve its full potential as long as a person’s physical characteristics are more important than a person’s ability.

Over a quarter-century ago, the SCOTUS decided a reverse-discrimination case (Bakke, sp) wherein it essentially said that Universities could use race and other criteria in their admissions process because a diverse student body enhanced everyone's education by bringing in points of view that would otherwise not come up. It is high time such an approach was applied to the SCOTUS itself.

While Obama should make the 'best' pick, pretending that gender politics doesn't enter into it would be foolish. Obviously a female type will be picked. On the plus side, women live longer then men, and maybe the PUMAs will finally STFU.

I get so tired of battling the sexism of people like Katharine Mieszkowski. How long will men have to struggle against this kind of bias? When will we get evaluated on who we are, rather than our gender?

Isn't this all starting to sound a little familiar?