Bush Nominates Roberts As Chief Justice
 

President Bush on Monday nominated John Roberts to succeed William H. Rehnquist as chief justice, and called on the Senate to confirm him before the Supreme Court opens its fall term on Oct. 3.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supre...ory?id=1098205

While I was pretty happy that Roberts would actually take his role as judge seriously and put forth effort to understand the law and not write the law this makes me nerveous. There's not a lot known about him. Maybe Dubya just wants to leave a legacy but I wouldn't be surprised if there were agreements in place.

Chief justice should be someone with much experience in the field, and someone a little bit older and wiser. Roberts is a very young man to have a CJ, he could be there 30 years or more without issue. There are others on that bench now that would do just as good a job, and many other judges who have worked the federal circuits with many years of experience for the job. Roberts is a very new judge, and to suddenly make him CJ is a truly major mistake.

When I see Bush do things like this, I am reminded that this boy never learned how to be subtle about anything. Political payback shouldn't be so blatant and so "in front of everyone's eyes".

I suspect that americans that elected the boy are pretty much ashamed now.

You may suspect that most Americans would be ashamed we started a war only to find out that no ties existed to WMD or terrorism yet most Americans still support it.

They're not ashamed at all and nothing will ever make them feel that.

I agree this looks like Bush politicking at its least subtle, but does it make any practical difference? After all the CJ's vote in court doesn't count any more than the other judges'.

The CJ has more "power" in what is brought before the court and what is not, THAT is what is scary.

Roberts as a person who has no real paper trail doesn’t scare me, the 40+YEARS he could be there scares me, whether he is right or left, putting someone in a position for that long of a time is just WRONG.

IMHO, the smartest thing Bush could have done was appointed Oconnor as CJ for this session, which would give the US more time to consider the options, she has already said she will serve until they have a replacement, and the US as a country, has WAY too much to deal with right now.

CJ votes last. This often means that the CJ has the deciding vote in a divided court. It also means that he can balance out a vote that has gone heavily one way (presenting a dissenting view when no other was made).

WHile all justices vote equally, being able to speak last is a large power. Assigning it to any one man for maybe 30 or 40 years is a truly scary thing, especially to a man with little or no judicial experience.

Seeing how well Bush has handled the Katrina situation, I don't feel that he is prepared to properly select someone to lead the court for the next 30 years.