Judge John Roberts is now officially Chief Justice John Roberts. The Senate voted 78-22 in favor of his nomination. Is this a surprise to anyone? Not really, with the Senate controlled by the GOP, everybody following even a tenth of the story could have predicted this.
Last week, I got readdicted to watching C-SPAN. Every free moment I had in the mornings before class, I flipped it on to watch John Roberts answer, dodge and out rightly refuse to answer questions by senators. What struck me most was how eloquent and simply brilliant Judge Roberts seemed. There was no question he knew the law, and beyond that, he smiled, laughed and demonstrated a genuine personality that seems excessively lacking in the rest of the political scene.
The other thing that struck me was how petty the extreme leftwing senators seemed while asking questions. Dianne Feinstein showed Americans once again her complete lack of... let's go with stability. Ted Kennedy was Ted Kennedy. It may have just been me, but continuing to ask a hypothetical, "what if," question to a man that will have to judge similar cases in the future and has already refused such questions is nothing short of idiotic. If I were in Roberts' shoes, I probably would have taken the Bork approach and fought for my ideas.
John Roberts is confirmed and the world can keep turning. On yeah, by the way, my name is
