Insight

'Supreme' Debate

LEFT

Well, conservative federal judge John Roberts has been confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Not only is he the youngest on the high court, he has also been given the distinct honor of being named chief justice.

I'm not going to write a crybaby column complaining that Roberts shouldn't be named to the court, let alone the Chief Justice position. There will be enough of those from the ever-shrinking liberal media soon enough. What I and a few other people in this country realize is that one of the perks of being president is you get to give cushy jobs to your friends as well as to those who think just like you do.

The American people twice elected George W. Bush as president and now he gets to flex his executive privilege not once, but twice. Both Rehnquist's death and the impending retirement of moderate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gives "W" two open positions.

But Roberts' being pushed through and nominated came way before Rehnquist died. Only after Rehnquist's death was Roberts' name said in the same breath as the words "chief justice nominee." But is this right?

I don't agree with their politics most of the time, but wouldn't one of the seated justices make a better chief justice than a new guy? This is the same as bringing a rookie onto a hockey team and making him captain.

The other justices are going to be swayed by Roberts, a man they really know nothing about. They don't know how he is going to vote now that he's on the bench. Roberts has said he won't be an ideologue; he will be someone who rules with a fair, yet heavy fist.

I don't believe him. But there's nothing we can do about it now.

Bush is going to stack this court so it leans so far to the right, this country will start sinking into the Atlantic little by little. Some things are for sure: the government will get smaller, the rights of citizens will be taken away piece by piece and soon, decisions will be made that affect us all by a Chief Justice that is so concerned about not being an ideologue that he has become a bitter pessimist.

So get your abortions and gay marriage licenses while you can, Big John Roberts is coming to town.

RIGHT

On the same day John Roberts took the bench as the newest chief justice of the United States, President Bush picked a woman, White House counsel Harriet Miers, to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

Miers isn't a surprising choice. Bush is known to favor looking to his friends first when filling important positions.

She has been at Bush's side for decades, having served as his personal lawyer in Texas, where she led a large law firm and headed the Texas Bar Association. She also served as his lottery commissioner when he was governor. Most recently, the president brought in Miers as the new White House counsel.

While going with Miers has many people scratching their heads, and conservatives and liberals wondering about her judicial philosophy, it's clear Bush is content with his decision.

There might not be a good reason to change it.

Miers has been in private practice for most of her life, having never served as a judge, so she hasn't got much in the way of a paper trail (just like Roberts). That will make it very difficult for the Democrats to find anything they can use to derail her nomination. What little is known about her political leanings points to her being a conservative Christian, so she's likely an originalist, someone who will interpret the Constitution as it's written, based on the Founders' intentions.

If that is the case, Bush has made an excellent choice, one that will shape the court for years to come.

Miers may have the judicial philosophy Bush envisioned when he said his nominees would be similar in outlook to Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, but there are some things about Miers that seem odd. She is 60 years old. Most justices are about 50 when they're appointed to the court.

Surely some younger person had Bush's trust and the other qualities he was looking for in a nominee.

Another thing that bothers me is that Miers has no family. Her father is deceased and her mother is in a nursing home. She has no husband or children. By all accounts, her life is her job. That makes me wonder if she has the kind of perspective and life experience a justice ought to have.

In the end, those are small problems; ones that are unlikely to amount to enough to justify Miers not being a justice.