Brooks indeed has a good column today. I'm copying it below. I think JohnM does not like him because Roberts seems too much like the Beaver's father, not an Eagle Scout:
nytimes.com
Competent Conservative
By DAVID BROOKS
Roberts nomination, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee with the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee because this is the way government is supposed to work. President Bush consulted widely, moved beyond the tokenism of identity politics and selected a nominee based on substance, brains, careful judgment and good character.
I love thee because John G. Roberts is the face of today's governing conservatism.
Conservatives who came of age in the 1960's did so in an intensely ideological time when it was arduous to be on the right. People from that generation are more likely to have a dissident mentality, to want to storm the ramparts of the liberal establishment, to wade in to vanquish their foes in the war of ideas.
But John Roberts didn't enter Harvard until the fall of 1973. He missed all that sturm und drang, so he lacks, his former colleagues say, the outsider/dissident mentality. By the time he came of age, it was easier for a conservative to be comfortable in mainstream institutions, without feeling embattled or spoiling for a fight.
Roberts has chosen to live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, not the Virginia ones, where the political climate is 30 degrees to the right. He submitted his wedding notice to the wedding page of The New York Times, which is perceived as alien turf by ideological conservatives.
Roberts is a conservative practitioner, not a conservative theoretician. He is skilled in the technical aspects of the law, knowledgeable about business complexities (that's why he was hired to take on Microsoft) and rich in practical knowledge. He is principled and shares the conservative preference for judicial restraint, but doesn't think at the level of generality of, say, a Scalia. This is the sort of person who rises when a movement is mature and running things.
I love thee also, Roberts nomination, because now we probably won't have to endure another bitter and vulgarized chapter of the culture war.
Confirmation battles have come to seem of late like occasions for bitterly divided Catholics to turn political battles into holy war Armageddons. Most of the main Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are Catholics who are liberal or moderate (Kennedy, Biden, Durbin, Leahy), and many of the most controversial judges or nominees are Catholics who are conservative (Scalia, Thomas, Pryor). When they face off, you get this brutal and elemental conflict over the role morality should play in public life.
Roberts is indeed a Catholic (if he's confirmed, there will be four on the court, three Protestants and two Jews), but he's not the sort to spark the sort of debate that leads to bitter Catholic vs. Catholic meshugas. He's not a holy warrior, and his wife is active in the culturally heterodox Feminists for Life.
The Robertses are evidently the sort of people, like most Americans, who confound culture war categories.
I love thee, finally, because now we'll get to see Hillary Clinton and the other mainstream Democratic presidential hopefuls define themselves.
This is going to be the first Supreme Court confirmation battle of the age of the blogger. Already the liberal interest groups, amplified by the blogs, are rolling out the old warhorse rhetoric. Already they've begun distorting Roberts's record, selectively quoting from his opinions and insisting the Senate maintain the balance of the court (which never matters when a Democrat is president).
I suspect the Democratic elites would rather skip this fight because it has all the makings of a political loser. Anybody who is brilliant during Supreme Court grillings, as Roberts is, will be impressive at confirmation hearings. He is modest and likeable, and has done pro bono work on behalf of the environment, parental rights and minorities.
But the Democratic elites no longer run the party. The outside interest groups and the donors do, and they need this fight. It's why they exist.
Hillary Clinton and the other Democratic hopefuls will have to choose between the militant wing of the party, important in the primary season, and the nation's mainstream center, which the party needs if it is to regain its majority status. It will be a defining and momentous vote.
In short, I love thee, Roberts nomination. President Bush has put his opponents on the defensive. He's sidestepped the culture war circus. And most important, he's shown that character and substance matter most. |
