Free Republic

"Another hanging chad has dropped. His name is John G. Roberts Jr., and he undoubtedly will turn out to be opposed to abortion rights, affirmative action, an expansive view of federal powers and a reading of the Constitution that takes a properly suspicious view of the state's embrace of religion. In these and other matters -- the death penalty, for instance -- he is expected to substantially reflect the views of George W. Bush, the man who nominated him to the Supreme Court, because that was what the election of 2000 and its sequel were all about. You hang enough...

He’s neither a savage beast nor a blithering idiot. That’s the important part. Liberals’ primary argument against nearly every Republican to come down the pike can be characterized as an attack on his kindness or, more often, on his intelligence. But not this time. Susan Estrich, longtime Democratic strategist and manager of the failed Dukakis campaign, said on international television (Fox News) that Judge John G. Roberts is a “developed intellectual” and a very charming guy—as opposed to Nino Scalia, who eats kittens. Estrich did not explicitly voice support for Roberts, but she didn’t seem heartbroken. This is in sharp...

Yesterday’s NY Times was practically begging the Senate to nominate John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court. The Time’s front page bio was a glowing review of Roberts and his “pragmatic view of the law.” David Brooks, the Times favored “conservative” used the word “love” to describe his feelings for Roberts. The headlining reader-submitted editorials were from democrats praising Roberts as “eminently qualified” and warnings to activist groups to “back off.” Three of the five reader editorials were pro-Roberts. The grey lady knows something about Roberts and she is pushing hard for this man. Assuming the Times bio is correct...

Judge John G. Roberts, the nominee picked by President Bush for the Supreme Court to take the place of retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, has earned many honors in life, starting with several awards for papers concerned with history, which he earned while an undergraduate at Harvard University in the early 1970s. Judge Roberts graduated from Harvard in 1976 and then continued on to Harvard Law School. However, law was not always the career path he intended to take. “John loved history," recalled Roberts's college roommate, Robert N. Bush, in an interview with the Harvard Crimson, "and said he’d be...

WASHINGTON - Democrats and liberal special interest groups had been primed for a fight over President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, expecting it would prove the Republican party was moving to the extreme right. Instead, Bush gave them Judge John G. Roberts Jr. He is smart, graduating from Harvard in three years. He is well-qualified, arguing 39 cases before the Supreme Court. He is well-liked, winning over both sides in his legal career. Roberts, a federal judge on the Washington, D.C., court of appeals, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this fall - which leaves Democrats a...

Let's not beat around the bush. Since 1973, Roe v. Wade has been the "settled" law of the land. John Roberts can help reverse that decision. That is why the Conservative movement is holding its collective breath. Likewise, that is why activists on the left are doing their best Howard Dean impersonations. A historical moment is at hand. Assuming Roberts is confirmed, he will take the place of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- a "conservative" justice who voted to reaffirm the "central principle" of Roe in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Not that you need reminding, but...

IT TAKES AN INSURRECTION TO change a country. It takes an establishment to govern one. Conservatives want both to change and to govern America. Thus we need our dissatisfied, troublemaking, occasionally splenetic, sometimes raffish anti-establishmentarians. After all, without brave resistance and bold insurrection on the part of conservatives, liberal orthodoxy and institutions would still dominate American life. But insurrection isn't enough. At some point, the radicals need assistance, support, and reinforcement from establishment conservatives--individuals ill-suited to insurrection but well-suited to rising through the institutions and moving them gradually but meaningfully in a conservative direction. Thus, we need our sober, calm,...

Democrats said yesterday they will demand that the Bush administration hand over internal legal memorandums written by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. while he was a government lawyer -- something the White House has refused to do in the past. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said he broached the topic during a meeting yesterday with Judge Roberts, who replied that any decision about his writings as deputy solicitor general would be made by the White House. Republicans on Capitol Hill said the request is not likely to be granted. Demands for those same documents -- deemed...

Just after the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was not very successful in garnering support in the Senate for American membership in the League of Nations. Opposition was led by Republican Sen. William Borah of Idaho. Years later Borah was asked why he thought the League was such a bad idea. "I didn't," he answered. "I was against it because it was Wilson's idea." So far the opposition on the left to President Bush's nominee as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts Jr., has mustered no more intellectual firepower than that.

In the question of the upcoming hearing on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John Roberts, one thing is certain: Dick Durbin, the Illinois senator who never wore the uniform of a member of our armed services yet compared American soldiers to Nazis, Pol Pot’s death squads and other unsavory characters will be among those doing their best to derail President Bush’s choice for the high court. He’s already told us that he would oppose any nominee who is, in his words, “outside the mainstream,” a place where in his warped view only conservatives such as Judge Roberts can be...

The Republicans' ideal Supreme Court nominee is someone who might overturn Roe v. Wade, but won't. That makes President Bush's choice of John G. Roberts pure genius. If defenders of abortion rights condemn the pick, so much the better. Social conservatives will think they won. And when a court ruling later proves they haven't, Republican leaders can comfort them. So far, all is according to plan. Roe v. Wade is the 1973 Supreme Court decision enshrining a federal right to abortion. If Roe went down, two bad things would happen to Republicans. One is that it would arouse America's pro-choice...

Illinois' senior Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Assistant Democrat Leader in the U.S. Senate, has wasted little time in launching against Judge John Roberts, President Bush's choice for the Supreme Court slot being vacated by retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Durbin has said that the President's decision to put forward John Roberts, 50, who he termed a "controversial nominee" guarantees a "controversial nomination process." Durbin previously clashed with Roberts during the confirmation process for the federal judgeship he now holds. Durbin questioned Roberts characterization of the Rehnquist Court as not necessarily conservative, saying that the the record of the court...

Senator Schumer is planning to use his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to reopen a battle he has already lost. "I voted against Judge Roberts for the D.C. Court because he didn't answer questions fully and openly when he appeared before the committee," Mr. Schumer said on Tuesday, referring to President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court. But despite being rebuked by his colleagues for pressing inappropriate questions on Mr. Roberts when he was a federal appeals court nominee, Mr. Schumer has signaled he is going to revisit the same line of questioning. "It is vital that Judge Roberts...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton offered the following statement today regarding President Bush’s nomination of Judge John Roberts: “President Bush promised to nominate someone in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas, someone who would refuse to legislate from the bench. With his nomination of John Roberts, the president has apparently kept his promise. By almost all accounts John Roberts is a brilliant, thoughtful conservative justice who will remain faithful to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. Moreover, Judge Roberts seems to have the experience and the strength of character to help lead the court...

No, not Greg Kinnear or Dan Quayle. Not talking about his looks. Talking about the kind of justice a Justice Roberts would be. Reading through the long profile in today's New York Times confirmed what has sounded right to me all along: Roberts sounds a lot like Justice John Harlan. Harlan was a superb lawyer, possibly the best lawyer to sit on the Court in this century. He was very deeply respectful of the Court and the Constitution, non-doctrinaire but still principled and coherent — unlike almost every other justice who has, like Harlan and evidently like Roberts, eschewed grand...

.....'A regular Midwest guy' Roberts has built a career in law with an eye toward higher goals - perhaps even to a seat on the Supreme Court. But behind the Ivy League credentials, beneath the dark wool uniform of one of Washington's oldest and largest law firms, Roberts is a man who more resembles his Midwestern roots than his East Coast resume, acquaintances say. "He's clearly not an elitist prep school, Ivy League-educated blue blood," said Bob MacLaverty, a classmate who was in Roberts' wedding. "He's just a regular Midwest guy." ......'A brilliant choice' Richard W. Garnett, a law professor...

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats, after months of preparing for a full-scale fight with President Bush over a Supreme Court nominee, found themselves Wednesday instead weighing whether or how to battle his choice of John G. Roberts Jr. The problem Democrats face is that Roberts, a well-known Washington lawyer before becoming a federal appellate court judge in 2003, appears to be more conservative than they would like but less ideological than they had feared. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) set the tone the day after Bush selected Roberts, taking pains to describe the nominee as an accomplished lawyer and a...

TALLAHASSEE - U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts provided legal advice to Gov. Jeb Bush in the weeks following the November 2000 election as part of the effort to make sure the governor's brother won the disputed presidential vote. Roberts, at the time a private attorney in Washington, D.C., came to Tallahassee to advise the state's Republican administration as it was trying to prevent a Democratic end-run that the GOP feared might give the election to Al Gore, sources told The Herald. The maneuver, which the Democrats never attempted, might have kept the state from sending its list of...

In nominating federal appeals-court judge John Roberts to the US Supreme Court, President Bush is laying the groundwork for a significant rightward shift at the nation's highest court. The move seeks to establish a presidential legacy that could influence one of America's most respected institutions decades after George W. Bush has left the White House. The Bush administration's conservative push at the high court would have been more sweeping, however, if the president had named a judicial clone of Justice Antonin Scalia or Justice Clarence Thomas, as he had promised during his campaigns. Instead, Roberts's record suggests his voting pattern...

Since U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor resigned July 1, speculation has focused on who would be President Bush's first nominee to the high court. Would it be another woman or a Hispanic? Would it be a hard-line, "movement" conservative or a moderate, nonideological figure? With Bush's nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr., the answer is known: none of the above. Roberts, as one White House counsel put it, has credentials that jump off the page. No fictional, idealized résumé could be more glowing: top of his high school class and football team captain; graduation with honors from...