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Well, first off, I would suspect that at the bottom of all those relentless emails you're getting is a line something like "Please send a donation to help us support the nomination of John Roberts." Also, just because a group is conservative doesn't make them any less gullible than a liberal group. I am not even necessarily claiming that these groups are wrong. All I'm saying is that, in large part, it is wishful thinking to state that John Roberts is a diehard conservative. We've got people looking at what groups his wife belongs to and how many children he has to determine whether he may overturn Roe v. Wade. We have people pointing to the brief he helped write for the first Bush Administration which opined that Roe was wrongly decided and should be revisited. Lawyers are taught to put forth viewpoints on behalf of their client that they themselves may not necessarily believe in.
We all want to believe that John Roberts is an originalist and will interpret the Constitution that way. My point is, and has been, that John Roberts doesn't have a record of the caliber of, say a Judge Samuel Alito, or Judge Emilio Garza or Edith Hollans Jones, where you can point to decision after decision after decision and say, "now, that's based on an originalist interpretation of the document." So, it becomes very difficult to actually ascertain his true judicial philosophy. Part of the reason he doesn't, is, of course, that he hasn't been on the Appeals Court for very long. Secondly, he seems to have taken pains in the past to dissociate himself from positions that might generate controversy. If he decided an issue based on a particular philosophy, he should be able to articulate it and defend it....not try to make himself the smallest target possible. To me, it seems we are so worried that there is a battle coming during confirmation that we are trying to minimize the arguments. That is a liberal strategy. You pass yourself off as something innocuous. What I'm saying is that, if John Roberts believes in an originalist philosophy of interpreting the Constitution (which we can't really tell because of the paucity of his record), he (or any nominee) should be able to explain the rationale for such a decision. Whether you believe this was a good nomination depends on several factors. First, I think he is obviously better than Gonzales would have been. But, then, that little voice whispers to me wondering if that might not have been a bit of strategy in and of itself....float a name of someone unsuitable to the base, then name a relative unknown....we'd be too busy breathing a sigh at dodging the Gonzales bullet that we'd forget that we only have some people's word that this guy is the real deal. Again, let me emphasize, other than one or two decisions that might indicate he could be a future swing vote there is not enough evidence to judge definitively either way, which, considering the importance of the position for which he's been nominated, and the other available candidates in whom we could have more confidence. For example, his comments in his dissent in Rancho Viejo v. Norton, in which he dissented from the decision of the court the Constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act arises from the Commerce Clause of the Constitution sounds like a good originalist reading of the Constitution...but then he goes further and urges that they could find other reasons to uphold the act, which sounds a bit activist to me. In any case, all I'm saying is that there were better choices to make than this one. We don't know, from his opinions, his judicial philosophy. We have heard more than once that a President has nominated a "solid" conservative only to have them become the next swing vote. In order to make confirmation easier, they have again chosen a judge that affords the smallest target. That is a good strategy for a rabbit in a field, but not for your pick for a lifetime position deciding matters of Constitutionality especially when you had available other potential nominees about whom you had little doubt.