George W Bush and the Supreme Court

From the Federalist Paper #76 by Alexander Hamilton (1788) on presidential appointments (e.g. Supreme Court):

[T]he Senate…would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.

[The president] would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and plihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

http://federalistpapers.com/federalist76.html