Roberts for Supreme Court

SCOTUS blog profile of Roberts here. NARAL doesn't like him based upon an argument he made while Deputy Solicitor General. This may or may not reflect his own views, but it definitely does not label him an activist to work in accordance with his employer's wishes. NARAL is sabotaging its own position by being extrmist. Daily Kos and his cronies are also going ballistic. I know what they want, but it should be plain to them they are not going to get it, and Roberts appears to be far more moderate than they probably should have hoped for. This is about as rational as me hoping Bill Clinton would nominate a Scalia-clone, and getting upset if I only got an O'Connor, who would actually be far closer to what I want than many choices he might have made. Roberts appears at first blush to be a moderate conservative, confirmed unanimously by the senate on the DC Court of Appeals in 2003, when the Donkeys were filibustering everything in sight.



Instapundit has a great round-up. You'd think he was a law professor or something.



Several Conspirators over at Volokh Conspiracy have posted on the nomination. I'm leaving the Tradesports stuff out of it.



Powerline has more, and notes on attacks going out before the telecast was over. It appears his decision in Hedgepeth is going to be one of the liberal talking points - me, I like the idea of a justice willing to say "The things that are wrong with this situation are beyond the scope of what judges are for." He's not a legislator, not an executive, he's a judge, and he seems to know it! Of course, given predilections on the left for wanting judges to enact by fiat what they can't get through the legislature or ballot box, this thought is poison to them.



Roger Simon has a nice turn of rational thought on the whole matter, and the more I think about it, the more I agree. Barring some truly damaging revelation, our president has done the best job of consultation prior to the naming of the candidate I can remember, and appears to have nominated a qualified jurist at least vaguely in line with his own philosophies (which is expected - I certainly didn't slam Clinton for his choices' philosophy, much as I could have wished for better, because he was the elected president, not me. I didn't and don't like him, but you had to give him the discretion to do his job, and the same applies to Bush).



By making this choice in this manner, President Bush is also testing the waters, I believe. Barring any new revelation, Roberts seems bulletproof. Again, barring new revelations, Roberts should expect a quick, easy confirmation. Nonetheless, his treatment will serve as a bellwether for the next choice (I anticipate at least one more vacancy in Bush's term, probably two, and possibly three, and I'm far from the most informed person watching this). If Roberts wins a quick easy confirmation, as he should if the Democrats are vaguely reasonable, then they can perhaps expect the President to continue this process of consultation and naming strongly qualified candidates that, if not necessarily the opposition's dream candidate, at least are not partisans in the other camp. If, on the other hand, opposition treatment of this nominee becomes shrill and partisan, I expect that Bush's next choice will be a suitably "In your face" candidate.



(I'm going to go on the record here as predicting that come hell or high water and even if his health deteriorates Rehnquist is going to do all he can to hang on long enough to serve a full court term with his former clerk.)



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