Mr. Roberts

President Bush yesterday nominated Judge John G. Roberts to the United States Supreme Court.
Many legal talking heads are saying that this is a strong selection by the President; that Judge Roberts’ resume prior to being put on the bench (he’s only been a judge for two years) is quite strong. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor described Roberts as "fabulous" and a "brilliant legal mind, a straight shooter, articulate, and he should not have trouble being confirmed by October." (Frankly, I think the President could have found someone with a longer judicial track record. We're talking about the highest court in the land!)

MSNBC reported yesterday that former Clinton White House counsel Lloyd Cutler called Bush’s selection a decent choice; and this morning on N.P.R. Robert Bennett, Clinton’s impeachment lawyer, said that this was a good nomination. Bennett stressed that the Republican candidate won the election last November and that this is the sort of candidate we would expect from such a president.

That seems to be the overall consensus; that Roberts is a decent, respectable choice coming from a conservative Republican chief executive and that the Senate is likely to confirm the nomination.

Liberal groups are coming out in strong opposition to the choice. Roberts has argued for pro-life forces in front of the high court and his wife is a member of some sort of "Feminists for Life" activist group. The judge is also a member of the Federalist Society, a right-wing legal group who helped fund the anti-Clinton smear campaigns of the 1990s.

If I were a senator I’d be holding any sort of judgment. Granted, a Republican president sits in the White House. As such we should expect a conservative nominee (just as we would expect a more center-left candidate from a Democratic president). But plenty of questions need to be asked of the judge – and answered by him.

"The president is a man of his word. He promised to nominate someone along the lines of a Scalia or a Thomas, and that is exactly what he has done," Tony Perkins, president of the radical-right Family Research Council, said yesterday.

Scalia and Thomas are what I consider to be "activist judges”" who "legislate" Fascist social policy from the bench. If during the confirmation process Roberts turns out to have a similar judicial temperament, his nomination should be defeated promptly.

If confirmation hearings show that he is a strong federalist and a defender of judicial restraint, then the Senate should give the Republican president his associate justice.

But, for now, I’ll take a wait and see approach. On to the hearings.

RELATED STORIES:
NY Times editorial.
USA Today editorial.
Andrew Sullivan's take.