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Bush Questioned Judges: How Often Do You Exercise? NewsMax.com WiresWhen George Bush interviewed a judge who was a leading candidate for the Supreme Court nomination, he didn't ask about the judge's position on abortion or any particular legal issue – but he did ask how much he exercised. "I told him I ran three and a half miles a day," said 60-year-old Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals. Story Continues Below "I said my doctor recommends a lot of cross-training, but I said I didn't want to do the elliptical and the bike and the treadmill." The president, who's a fitness fanatic and works out regularly, "took umbrage at that," Wilkinson told the New York Times. "He thought I was well on my way to busting my knees. He warned me of impending doom." Bush looked extensively into the backgrounds of the finalists for the high court, but "in the end relied as much on chemistry and intuition as on policy and legal intellect," according to the Times. Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the President, told reporters on Tuesday night: "He likes to have the info, he likes to have the background, but he also is a field player. "He likes to size people up himself, make his own judgment." Bush's interviews with Wilkinson and eventual nominee John Roberts focused heavily on the upbringing of the two men. "He wanted to know about his personal life and about where he came from," Bartlett said of Bush's interview with Roberts, who was president of his high school class and captain of the football team. Confirming that Bush did not ask Wilkinson about his views on issues such as abortion or even a particular legal case, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said: "There was no litmus test applied." Bush kept his choice secret from all but a handful of insiders before he called Roberts on Tuesday afternoon to offer him the nomination, the Times reports. That evening, before Bush's televised announcement, presidential adviser Karl Rove was phoning key conservatives to inform them of the selection. One call was a conference call with C. Boyden Gray, chairman of the Committee for Justice; Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society and head of Catholic outreach for the Republican Party; Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the evangelical group the American Center for Law and Justice; and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III of the Heritage Foundation. Judge Wilkinson added Bush had given him a tour of the family quarters at the White House and "just could not have been more gracious."
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