Thoughts on a Chief Justice Roberts

I honestly don't know where I stand on the idea of a Roberts Court after living through the Rehnquist Court. I didn't get much of a chance to follow the confirmation hearings, but I did catch some parts of hearings on C-SPAN's website and through media reports on the hearings.

One thing I do like about Judge Roberts: the far-left considers him too conservative and the far-right considers him too liberal. What's not to love about that?

My favorite aspect of Roberts is reflected in a recent editorial from The New Republic:

"I do not have an overarching judicial philosophy," Roberts told the hearings. It is impossible to imagine Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas uttering those words. And, he added, "I tend to look at the cases from the bottom up rather than the top down." This is a man animated by the law, not by the movement. He rejected the dogma that the Constitution should rigidly be construed in accordance with its original understanding, and he endorsed "a more practical and pragmatic approach."

Bingo.