Chief Justice Roberts
Just a quick word on developments over the weekend. As expected, Chief Justice Rehnquist’s seat on the Supreme Court finally became vacant, though unfortunately for his family, it was due to death rather than retirement. On one hand, it’s too bad Bush gets to make the appointment of the next Chief Justice. On the other hand, it was, for once, hard to imagine Bush finding someone of acceptable stature who could be worse on the issues than Rehnquist.
In this light, John Roberts, who seemed like a scary choice to replace a retiring swing vote, suddenly looks ok-ish as a successor to another established reactionary. I’m not delighted that we’ll be stuck with this guy for the next 30 years or so, but that’s how it comes down sometimes. We survived Burger, we survived Rehnquist, we’ll survive Roberts – assuming that we can limit the damage elsewhere.
Is this a guy that a Democrat would have picked? No, of course not. Is he someone that every Democratic Senator should oppose as hostile to the interests and values of our party? Sure – and it’s important to go on record with those objections.
But let’s face facts. Democrats don’t have the votes to defeat this nomination. Winning the last election was important for precisely this reason, and we couldn’t get it done. The only measures at the Democrats’ disposal are filibuster and some kind of all-out grass-roots mobilization, although it’s far from clear that either of those would be effective. And if they would be effective once, they may not work later, when it will be necessary to go all out to prevent a completely heinous, off-the-wall nominee to replace a more important vote.
I haven’t been following the revelations about Roberts’ record terribly closely. I get the impression that he’s said and written a few stupid things, but generally appears to be the very model of a modern conservative legal mind: professional, conventional, methodical, and at least a little bit tinged with the kinds of batty assumptions you pick up at the Right Prep Schools and from drinking the Kool Aid at Federalist Society meetings.
In short, he sounds like the kind of nominee you’d get from pretty much any Republican president. Different from Democrats, but still within the general framework of our overall politics.
Honestly, things have gotten to the point now where when Bush merely acts like a normal (pre-1994) Republican, it’s worth celebrating. It’s actually a pleasant surprise that our next Chief Justice isn’t going to be a completely bezerk troglodyte freak with a grudge against the entire Enlightenment, but merely a button-down corporate stooge with a few unpleasant attitudes typical of his class (which, if true, would actually make him a slight step up from Rehnquist). If we knock this guy down, God knows who we might get. After all, it's still Bush making the appointment, and the odds of him doing something that's not maximally destructive more than once are not so great.
I see forces against Roberts are still gathering. Certainly there’s plenty to object to, especially if you think no one should ever be put on the Court who might vote to overturn Roe. They might be right that he’s a stealth candidate, far worse than we can imagine. Still, I hope Dems can take a deep breath and suck this one up as the costs of losing. The now-deferred replacement for O’Connor is still out there, and may be much more deserving of the full-court press. We'll get one clean shot to take someone out. At this point, I'm not sure Roberts deserves it, especially as a replacement for Rehnquist.
8:58:49 AM 
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