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The Roberts Court seems to be becoming The Burger Court 2.0. During Warren Burger's tenure as Chief, he had been selected by Nixon because he had a reputation as a good conservative, and he was an abled administrator and public face of SCOTUS. However, rather than reverse all the liberal activist decisions that had occurred in the past (as Nixon hoped would happen once the court had a majority GOP judges), the court quietly let them stand and then began passing new "landmark" leftist victories like Roe v. Wade. Burger, while usually conservative, was no ideological strong-arm like his predecessor had been. The four liberal justices on the court stood firm and they were often able to sway at least 1 or 2 mushy conservatives to switch sides on key cases. Blackmun started off as fairly conservative, then went to the dark side during Roe v. Wade and never returned.

Roberts court seems very much headed in this direction during Obama's presidency. Only 2 of the conservatives (Scalia and Thomas) are unflappable, Alito usually joins them 90% of the time but lacks the same punch. Roberts and Kennedy are "conservative" on paper (Roberts moreso than Kennedy) but can be persuaded to turn traitor on "landmark" cases, resulting in 5-4 or 6-3 wins for liberals that set all kinds of horrible "precedents". The four liberals on the court (laughably portrayed by the mainstream media as "slightly left of center") give carte blanche to leftist causes in this country and usually stand together and share concurring opinions on every important case that has grave ramifications. We seem to have reached the high water mark for our side during the Rehnquist court. That was a majority conservative court that actually acted like it most of the time. It wasn't even much further right than the Roberts court, and its own share of plenty of 5-4 decisions. Ironically the court membership was 7 GOP - 2 RAT, but thanks to two horrible RINOs (Souter and Stevens), it might as well been 5 GOP - 4 RAT. Plus, prior to Darth Bader Ginsburg, Renquist/Scalia/Thomas/Kennedy/O'Connor could sway Democrat Byron White to their side on key cases.

The thought of Burger Court 2.0 is quite alarming for America. Burger Court 1.0. did an enormous amount of damage in the 70s while being a "conservative majority, strict constructionist" court on paper.

To believe that the Rehnquist Court was more conservative (or less liberal) than the Roberts Court, one would have to judge Roberts to be more liberal than O’Connor, which is risible. As disappointing (or traitorous—choose your adjective) as Roberts has been in the two Obamacare cases and the California SSM case, O’Connor was far, far wiorse, clearly more liberal than Kennedy (who is *much* more liberal than Roberts).

George W. Bush’s two SCOTUS appointments (Roberts and Alito, the latter of whom has been outstanding, with fewer unfortunate votes than Scalia or Thomas over the past few years) have been, as a whole, far better and much more conservative than were George H.W. Bush’s two appointments (the excellent Thomas and the execrable ultraliberal Souter) or Ronald Reagan’s three appointments (the outstanding Scalia, untrustworthy moderate Kennedy and liberal-to-moderate O’Connor. George W. Bush’s lower-court appointments also have proven to be excellent, better than his father’s and up there with President Reagan’s. George W. Bush had many flaws, but his record regarding judges was very good (even though he did, as you noted, luck into nominating him instead of the enigmatic lackey Harriet Miers).