Below The Beltway

President Bush has nominationed John Roberts to replace William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States.
Politically this is a smart move because, in many respects, Roberts has already been through the vetting process as part of his nomination to replace Sandra Day O’Connor. How it plays out in the end may depend on who [...]

That’s what the opponents of John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court are doing now that its become apparent that there isn’t anything on his record that can credibly defeat his nomination.
The latest example comes from today’s Washington Post
When John G. Roberts Jr. prepared to ghostwrite an article for President Ronald Reagan a little over [...]

First came the news that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts helped attorneys trying to defeat an anti-gay rights referndum in Colorado now comes news that he also worked for Playboy on a Supreme Court case.
I’m not sure what any of this really means because, in both cases, Roberts was working as an advocate for a [...]

Stopping a judicial conflict of interest, that’s the title of an op-ed in yesterday’s edition of the Boston Globe where the author makes the audacious proposal that Catholic judges be barred from ruling on cases involving abortion.
Not surprisingly, the impetus for this suggestion is the nomination of John Roberts, who happens to be Catholic, to [...]

One more quote from the Washington Post story about John Roberts noted below:
In another development yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sent Roberts a letter warning that lawmakers are angry about the Supreme Court’s denigration of Congress and by actions that have trimmed congressional powers. He said he plans to question Roberts closely [...]

The onslaught against the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court has started. Yesterday, NARAL began an ad campaign that claims that Roberts supports abortion clinic bombers.
Reality, of course, is different:
The ad, sponsored by NARAL Pro-Choice America, focuses on Roberts’s role in a case involving whether a 19th-century anti-Ku Klux Klan statute could [...]

The NY Times is apparently investigating the records surrounding the adoption of Judge John Roberts’ two children. This is really despicable. It was bad enough when, in 1986, reporters were looking into Robert Bork’s video rentals but to involve the man’s children in a witch hunt is beyond contempt.
Of course, this does come from Drudge [...]

Its early in the process, but so far, I’m liking what I hear from Judge John Roberts
“When the other branches of government exceed their constitutionally-mandated limits, the courts can act to confine them to the proper bounds. It is judicial self-restraint, however, that confines judges to their proper constitutional responsibilities.”
Exactly. Too often, both sides [...]

Something tells me, though, that if the word “Catholic” in the headline to this story were to be replaced with the name of virtually any other religious or ethnic group, the protests would’ve already started.
I’m not going to call it anti-Catholic bigotry, but some have and I can’t say the conclusion is absurd.
Update: Link to [...]

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Law Professor Richard Epstein has some questions for the people who will be asking Judge John Roberts questions in a few weeks.