Roberts Rule of Order

Here is a bit of a round up on the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. There is some mixed opinion here and there, but overall the reaction from many conservatives is positive so far. I think we can say that the next several months are going to be very interesting.

Manuel Miranda writes about the nomination of Judge Roberts in The Wall Street Journal. He notes how quickly the rumors shifted from Edith Clement to Roberts late in the day yesterday. But he is quite happy about the pick.

Last night George Bush kept his campaign promise that he would name a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. And I for one am ashamed that I ever doubted him. I should have understood the president better. In John Roberts, the president got what he wanted, and we conservatives did too.

But what a day! From the earliest moments on Tuesday, the Capital's rumor mill predicted with increasing "certainty" that the nominee was Edith Brown Clement of Louisiana, whom President Bush elevated four years ago to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

At Powerline blog they are enthusiastic:

Pop the champagne corks, conservatives. Roberts is a fantastic choice, a brilliant and bulletproof conservative. And it was fun to see Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer on television tonight; they looked just awful. After President Bush's terrific, upbeat presentation of Roberts, and Roberts' graceful, brief talk, Leahy and Schumer sounded like they had just dropped in from another planet. They were dour, hateful, and came across as sad and pathetic minions who have been sent on a hopeless mission by their bosses at "People for the American Way."

It's a great day for conservatives and for America. Thanks to President Bush for nominating the best person for the job--or, certainly, one of the best people, along with McConnell, Luttig and one or two others--rather than taking the easy, politically correct way out.

And Hugh Hewitt thinks the President hit a home run with this choice:

John Roberts: A home run for the president, the SCOTUS, and for the United States.

Judge John Roberts may be the smartest lawyer I have known, and he combines that intellect with a graciousness and good humor that will make it hard for any except the most extreme ideologues to oppose him. Here's his bio, but it cannot fully convey the great intellectual force which Justice Roberts will bring to the SCOTUS.

Full disclosure: Judge Roberts and I were colleagues in the White House Counsel's Office in 1985/1986. A colleague of his from his Hogan & Hartson days, Dan Poneman, was a guest on the program earlier and a transcript of that conversation will be posted at Radioblogger.com. Poneman is a center-left specialist on national security issues, having served both the first President Bush and President Clinton on the NSC. Poneman's enthusiasm for the Roberts nomination will be mirrored across official Washington which will have a very hard time summoning any energy to smear as well regarded and liked man as Judge Roberts

And in addition to being enthusiastic, Powerline has a good analysis of how the Democrats are likely to proceed regarding this nomination. The left is, of course, going to engage their automatic knee-jerk anti-conservative reaction. Unfortunately for them, they have little else to work with than anti-conservative, anti-Bush hate. And that coin has been pretty well spent. What they will try to do is to ask a bazillion question, most of which they are not traditionally supposed to ask and the nominee is not supposed to answer due to the fact that it would show him to be prejudiced regarding cases he has not seen yet, and then they will claim that the nominee is "unacceptable" because he is not "forthcoming."