Tuesday, August 30, 2005

The Teflon Candidate

Folks on the left have been scouring over records left over from the Reagan Administration, desperate to find a smoking gun that will aid them in derailing the candidacy of Judge John Roberts. But look though they might, they have found nothing of sufficient weight to allow them to batter down the fortress of solitude that the judge has built around himself.

From all indications, President Bush's candidate for the Supreme Court is a thoughtful, quiet man, which is why some of the memos unearthed by his detractors, such as those criticizing Reagan Administration decisions to meet with the entertainer, Michael Jackson, seem uncharacteristically harsh and outspoken. But even considering these exceptions, Judge Roberts looks to be the silent candidate that has always escaped much notice, except among those who were in a position to recognize and promote his talent.

From his days as a young prep school student, to his days as a law clerk, to his confirmation as U.S. appellate judge, nothing much seemed to faze Mr. Roberts, and nothing distracted from his determination to succeed at what he did.

There are several reasons why John Roberts seems immune from criticism. The first has to do with his unquestionable credentials, all of which suggest that he is a man of substance who succeeded academically beyond what almost any others of his peers were capable. A graduate of Harvard University, he went straight to the top of his class at Harvard Law. It seems that everyone who has ever met him remembers him for his intellect and hard work.

The second reason has to do with his role as a lawyer. Having argued various conservative positions for the Reagan Administration, he also volunteered to promote the cause of group even his detractors would recognize as generally disfavored among many conservatives -- gays who believed that they were being discriminated in housing decisions. This latter he did as a private lawyer pro bono -- for the good of society. What he did was no more or less than what every lawyer does every day of the week: Represent causes to the best of his ability, regardless of whether he himself believed in them. Clearly there is no smoking gun here.

The third reason relates to the mood of the country. While resentment against conservative over-reaching seems a factor in the thoughts of many who oppose the Roberts nomination, the country as a whole is unable to understand why it is that the left finds him so objectionable. Even questions posed about Judge Roberts' beliefs about the rights of privacy raise few red flags, since privacy itself is associated with an obvious agenda on this score -- the endless debate over abortion.

And perhaps this last reason is why opposition to Judge Roberts most likely will fail. For Americans are deeply conflicted over the issue of abortion rights, and despite the belief that the majority of Americans support the right to an abortion, another majority quite arguably opposes the notion of killing the unborn. And since the most vocal opponents of Judge Roberts are those who promote the "choice" to kill the unborn, there is a visceral ambiguity about their cause that bars most of us from supporting the opposition to his nomination on that ground.

When the nomination of Judge Roberts goes before the Senate, accordingly, only the most unexpected charge from left field will stand the chance of stopping it. The left has had weeks to come up with their plan of attack, and from all indications, it is not one that will succeed. Unlike, it might be said, John Roberts himself.

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