What the Thunder Said...

What the Thunder said...
... about John Roberts.

Listening: nothing but the traffic, but strangely "Summer Nights" from Grease is going through my head
Reading: Biblical hebrew and wsj/nytimes
Enjoying: I WAS enjoying a coke...

The wife and I were sweated out of our apartment, so we're in Dinkytown enjoying each other and trying to get some work done.

So anyway, I'm thinking its about time I weigh in on John Roberts, since, well... its cool to do that stuff. Just recently, it came out that John Roberts held back some information.

Two things about Johnny (I can call him that, since we're so close). First, I am struck by how often Roberts has to "recollect" or "remember." He doesn't "recall" ever being a paying member of the Federalist Society. Now he's apologizing for not "remembering" that he was a lobbyist for a cosmetic industry. Is that all it takes for these things? I forgot? I'm honestly not being critical of J.R., since I think he is a pretty great judge (and I support his nomination for the Supreme Court bench), but I feel like the standards have fallen a little bit. Congress is being a bit lax on these things. I realize I'm a bit young and perhaps naive when it comes to these things, but I strain to imagine George Washingtom, Adams, or - judicially - Marshall "forgetting" something. Poor Nixon and Clinton. If they had only claimed they had forgot. So really, I'm down on Congress for accepting lame answers like "I forgot." Perhaps they accept such responses because they often offer similar ones.

The other circumstantial nuisance deals with his over 100 page response to the questions the Congress put to him. In it, Roberts repeatedly uphelp platitudes about the humility it requires to be a judge, about honoring precedent, and not taking your power as an opportunity to right perceived wrongs. An attempt to be an objective, neutral, reader and expositor of the law is, according to this blog, what makes for a good judge. I'm curious how Robert's opposition will take that. Are activist judges that take their own (usually liberal) causes to the bench with them a chronological anomaly to be valued? Or do the same Senators view this as a strength in Roberts, that leaves the law making/twisting to them?

I suppose only time will tell.

Labels: City of Man