Intellectual Capital: Michael McGough / Criticism of Roberts is a moot point

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Monday, September 26, 2005

[alessandrofiaschi]

A mock Supreme Court argument in a gay-rights case reminds us that liberals sometimes agree with the next chief justice

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- You won't see John Roberts among the head shots of Supreme Court justices posted at the William & Mary Law School, site of the 2005-06 Supreme Court Preview. Instead of Roberts' face in the space reserved for the chief justice there is a question mark, a reflection of Roberts-like caution on the part of the organizers of this annual conference on the new court term. After all, Roberts hasn't been confirmed yet.

But if Roberts is missing from the tableau of justices outside the moot courtroom, he nonetheless has been a brooding omnipresence at this conference, both at sessions analyzing cases on the court's docket (how will Roberts vote?) and in more freewheeling seminars on "Confirmation Politics" and "Looking Ahead."

The Ghost of Roberts Past -- the recent past of his Senate confirmation hearings -- even haunted the spectacle that launched this year's preview, a moot court in which a "Supreme Court" comprising black-robed journalists and law professors heard arguments in a dress rehearsal of Rumsfeld v. FAIR, a case that will come before the real Supreme Court on Dec. 6.

In Rumsfeld (as in Secretary of Defense Donald) v. FAIR (the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, representing 31 American law schools), the justices will review a decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia blocking the enforcement of a law known as the Solomon Amendment.

(...)

[alessandrofiaschi]

Please, read the whole article. It is sibylline the end: "What matters is practical results, not principles."

[HiTech RedNeck]

This is going to be another Golden Rule case. As in he who gives the Gold makes the Rules.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Since this cartoon will change tomorrow, I'll describe it. Judge Roberts is being questioned during the hearings by Ted Kennedy. Judge Roberts has just said, "My judicial philosophy is to install the entire Democratic Party platform from the Supreme Court." To which Kennedy replies, "But then what?"