I think Roberts will turn out to be just as conservative as Rehnquist, though perhaps we should use the term constitutionalist rather than conservative. In reality, there are no conservative judges on the court, if we define that as being a judge who uses his office to forcibly impose conservative policies on the country. The court is currently divided between judges who use the court to force liberalism on the country and judges who don't. The media describe those who don't force liberalism down our throats via judicial fiat as "conservatives" or "right-wingers". But in fact those judges are not the right-wing ideological mirror image of the left-wing judges on the court.
The court isn't divided between judges who would use the court to force the leftist position on culture war issues on the country and judges who would use the court to impose the rightist position on culture war issues on the country. It's divided between judges who would impose those leftist policies and judges who would leave those issues to the voters to decide.
So the entire media characterization of this fight is false. It's not a question of whether we'll be governed by leftist judges or by rightist judges. It's whether we'll be governed by leftist judges or will be allowed to govern ourselves.
Precisely!
I agree that 'conservative' and 'liberal' are political terms and not judicial philosophies, but many judges use their own political ideology to direct their judicial activism philosophy.
Rhenquist has shown an activist streak in the past which is why I refer to him as a conservative rather than an originalist or a constructionalist. It should also be pointed out that Rhenquist was not appointed for his originalist philosophy but for his conservative ideology.