It might be too early to judge John Roberts, but he is, as Wolf Blitzer just said, “a rock-solid conservative”. I’d call him a right-wing radical (see Slate‘s evaluation here). Bush could have gone a number of different ways, but this one’s clearly for the base.
Still, he’ll be confirmed (quite easily, I’d imagine). For weeks, we’ve all been throwing names around, but now at least we can do more than speculate idly (and, at times, wildly).
For more on this, see my take on Roberts’s nomination, along with an evaluation of his record, at The Reaction.
(Senator Leahy has opened up Roberts’s judicial philosophy (and record) as fair game. Senator Schumer voted against him for the D.C. Circuit Court and has started the fight — the only unequivocally good thing about Roberts, says Schumer, is that he’s a Bills fan!) It may just be rhetoric, but it’ll be interesting to see how Democrats respond to this. Again, he’ll be confirmed — he’s well-known in Washington, seemingly quite likeable, and Democrats might not have enough votes for a filibuster — but they’ll at least put up a fight. Meanwhile, I think it would behoove all of us to keep our minds open until we know more.)
UPDATE — From the Post (see here):
As a successor to O’Connor, a centrist-conservative who cast the swing vote for years, legal analysts expect Roberts to move the court further to the right, but do not consider him among the most ideological of the candidates Bush considered. Often described as steady, even-tempered and fair-minded, Roberts has accumulated a slim record as a judge but has a longer paper trail as a lawyer for the government and in private practice that will surely become the fodder for debate in the coming weeks…
“The burden is on the nominee to the Supreme Court to prove he is worthy,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference last night. Yet even Schumer praised Roberts’s character and temperament.
“We know Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O’Connor, and the White House has sent a clear signal,” Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who lost to Bush in November, said in a statement. “There are serious questions that must be answered involving Judge Roberts’s judicial philosophy as demonstrated over his short time on the appellate court.”
Yes, let the games begin…