"In the Loop" (on Thursday!): No plum ambassador gigs for fat-cat contributors? Plus, prospects for the ultra-right Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

The Powell Courthouse in Richmond, home to the ultra-conservative Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has four vacancies waiting for the new president to fill

"The big-money types and "bundlers," the fundraisers who helped put together Obama's stunning financial advantage, are expecting their reward -- say a nice, cushy ambassadorship in Rome or Paris or London. . . . But the chatter is that they'd better not count on it. The traditional sale of most ambassadorships, so aptly carried on during the Bush administration, may not continue."

-- Al Kamen, in his "In the Loop" column in today's Washington Post

by Ken

From the brain trust at the Washington Post came word yesterday that the old Federal Page, containing news of the inner workings of the intricate webs of government in the District of Columbia, has been replaced by something online called The Fed Page, which as best I can tell is going to contain news of the inner workings of the intricate webs of government in the District of Columbia.

Check. Maybe if I had the print edition as well as the online one I would understand better. But then, my understanding doesn't seem high on anyone's list of priorities.

However, one feature of The Fed Page caught my notice:

*In the Loop: Longtime Washington Post columnist Al Kamen reports throughout the week on the comings and goings and pratfalls of the federal government.

What's interesting here is, first, that apparently "In the Loop" will now refer only to our pal Al's inimitably wicked reports -- fed by what appears to be a veritable army of Inside the Beltway informants -- on the seedy underbelly of the permanent government. Although most of us think automatically of him when we hear "In the Loop," the Post has been using it as a standing head that also covered supposedly similar (bah!) columns by other writers.

Even more interesting is this business of Al reporting "throughout the week." Of late his publication schedule had shrunk to Wednesday and Friday. But sure enough, here we have a full helping of "In the Loop" on Thursday.

It leads off with the above-referenced item on early word regarding Obama administration ambassadorships:

Under Obama, the Envoy Convoy May Screech to a Halt

By Al Kamen
Thursday, November 6, 2008; A28

You'd think everyone on the Obama team would be celebrating today. But you'd be wrong.

There is major agita among some key elements of President-elect Barack Obama's juggernaut. For example, the big-money types and "bundlers," the fundraisers who helped put together Obama's stunning financial advantage, are expecting their reward -- say a nice, cushy ambassadorship in Rome or Paris or London. (By tradition, about one-third of the nation's 190 ambassadors are political appointees. They're the ones who get the fine European postings.)

But the chatter is that they'd better not count on it. The traditional sale of most ambassadorships, so aptly carried on during the Bush administration, may not continue.

Early speculation is that Obama may be more inclined to follow the Clinton model and select people, often political types, with some foreign policy credentials or knowledge of a country's language or culture. Clinton generally picked the high-rollers for smaller -- albeit quite lovely -- places such as Prague or Vienna. So you may have to forget about the Via Veneto.

Al also has reports on the early days of the Obama transition team, and an especially provocative item, "New Order in the Courts," which focuses not just on the obvious question of preparing for Supreme Court vacancies ("possibilities include Diane P. Wood, a federal appeals court judge in the 7th Circuit and on the faculty at University of Chicago, where Obama once taught; Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School; appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor; and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick") but on the 15 appeals court and 36 district court openings the new president already has to fill -- with an eased path to confirmation thanks to the larger majority the Democrats will now have on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The "most likely target right off the bat" is four openings (out of 15 seats) on the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland). The Fourth Circuit, Al reminds us, is "long a bastion for conservative legal theories," but he doesn't remind us that it used to be more or less the personal preserve of the late Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Filling those four vacancies could bring about, wonder of wonders, a Democratic majority on the Fourth Circuit.

What's more,

Obama could expand his reach further if Congress passes a bill that adds new positions on the circuit court bench, which has not expanded since 1991, despite a 50 percent increase in the number of appellate filings in that time.

Already, liberal advocates, who have been in the political wilderness for eight years, are scurrying to prepare lists of potential nominees for appellate judgeships. "There's a pretty aggressive effort to try to identify candidates," said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice.

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