Win, Lose, or Rain?

People are split over Justice Roberts' nomination: some say his record is too short to know him; others say that it's clear what kind of justice he will be. This latter group is split between those (like E.J. Dionne) who think he will be a strong rightist and others (including Ann Coulter) who think he's moderate and will move left. This tells me that those who think we don't know yet are correct.

His inscrutability may be precisely why Bush has placed him on the court now, and did not hold his piece de resistance in reserve for the expected Rehnquist vacancy. This way, Bush can get a look at Roberts in action, and when Rehnquist dies (or retires, though I suspect the latter will occur first) elevate Roberts to Chief Justice and put a woman or minority onto the Court as an Associate Justice. This is not what Justice O'Connor expects, though it jibes with her assertion that Bush would not want a woman or minority as Chief Justice. Better put, the sentiment is that Bush would want the best justice on the Court as Chief, not a justice who is there primarily because of his or her birth circumstances.

Of course, Rehnquist is loudly insisting that he's "not dead yet", and one of my coworkers believes he'll hang on for another five or ten years. I'm less convinced. His health is so poor, and the pressure to retire while the government is in Republican hands is so high, that I find it hard to imagine him hanging on until 2009. Whether another justice will join him in death or retirement is less predictable - none of the liberals would want to step down and hand the balance of power to a Republican majority, though none except Ginsburg and Breyer were actually appointed by Democrats.