"Not a single person has voted for me and if we don't like what the people in Congress do we can get rid of them, you know, if you don't like what I do, it's kind of too bad. And that is to me an important constraint," Roberts said. "It means that I'm not there to make a judgment based on my personal policy preferences or my political preferences."

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/SupremeCourt/story?id=2651063&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312


I like him. Have since he was nominated. In fact, he's one of the few things I think Bush got right.

"Not a single person has voted for me and if we don't like what the people in Congress do we can get rid of them, you know, if you don't like what I do, it's kind of too bad. And that is to me an important constraint," Roberts said. "It means that I'm not there to make a judgment based on my personal policy preferences or my political preferences."

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/SupremeCourt/story?id=2651063&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312


I like him. Have since he was nominated. In fact, he's one of the few things I think Bush got right.

I like him too. The few times I've heard him speak I've been very impressed. I saw him during a mock trial at a law school and he blew me away. A VERY intelligent man. He might turn out to be one of the best things Bush unwittingly did.

A friend who covers the SCOTUS tells me Clarence Thomas chooses not to participate.
He rarely, if ever, asks questions. Scary shat if you ask me. How can you reasonably make judgements if you don't ever question petitioners? Possibly one of the worst appointments in the 20th century.

CT scares the crap out of me, too.

Roberts is weird -- or rather, the unanimity of agreement on his awesomeness is weird. He's the one call Bush made that everyone, from both sides of the aisle seemed to agree with.

Where'd he find this guy?

Alito, OTOH...

Word is that Thomas lets his clerks handle the opinions. Not just the writing, the deciding.

But that said, the questioning is overrated. Much of it is showing off for the fellow justices rather than trying to get an intelligent response from counsel. I judge Thomas by the quality of his decisions rather than how much he flaps his lip in court. But the decisions do nothing to elevate my opinion of him.

Roberts, on the other hand, may be much more conservative than I would like and may read the Constitution differently from me, but he's as honest as the day is long and the most liberal law professors I know rate him a first rate legal thinker, so I am hopeful.

A friend who covers the SCOTUS tells me Clarence Thomas chooses not to participate. He rarely, if ever, asks questions. Scary shat if you ask me. How can you reasonably make judgements if you don't ever question petitioners? Possibly one of the worst appointments in the 20th century.As an attorney, that doesn't bother me at all. The oral argument (BTW, often dispensed with entirely in district courts around the nation) seldom reveals anything that isn't already covered in the briefs, and in any event, Thomas is not skipping the oral argument, he just isn't asking questions. That leaves 8 other enormous egos to fill the time, and they do, and Thomas listens (or gives the appearance of doing so most of the time, which makes him exactly like every other appellate judge in the country). IMO, this is an issue purely of style, not substance.

"It means that I'm not there to make a judgment based on my personal policy preferences or my political preferences."That would be news to the man who appointed him. Sounds nice, though.

IMO, this is an issue purely of style, not substance.
Exactly. Do we really expect a justice to get something crucial from 3 minutes of questioning (30 minutes divided by nine justices) that he or she won't get from reading a carefully prepared brief.

Also, any questions one intelligent justice is likely to ask will also, likely, be asked by another. Choosing to listen allows a justice to give his or her full attention to the argument instead of half-listening while trying to formulate a question or bon mot that will impress his or her fellow justices and the press corps.

I don't think much of Thomas, but that's because his opinions are dumb, not because he fails the "chatty Cathy" test.

Why do you think Bush did this "unwittingly," is it that difficult to give him credit when it is due?

Why do you think Bush did this "unwittingly,"
Two words: Harriet Myers.

Two words: Harriet Myers.

I don't think that was unwitting at all. To the contrary, it was very calculated. Unwitting would have been if she actually made it through confirmation hearings.

As an attorney, that doesn't bother me at all. The oral argument (BTW, often dispensed with entirely in district courts around the nation) seldom reveals anything that isn't already covered in the briefs, and in any event, Thomas is not skipping the oral argument, he just isn't asking questions. That leaves 8 other enormous egos to fill the time, and they do, and Thomas listens (or gives the appearance of doing so most of the time, which makes him exactly like every other appellate judge in the country). IMO, this is an issue purely of style, not substance.



Showboating justices aside... Thomas isn't presenting an opportunity to be swayed by a petitioner's response to a question. Which, IMO, would mean he has already, in part, made up his mind and doesn't feel a need to delve into issues deeper. The world just isn't that black and white. He may listen, but does he listen with an open mind, or does he hear only what he wants to hear?

Considering the SCOTUS only selects about, what is it, 80 cases a year to hear, and their rulings are pretty much final, I would think a justice would want to give every opportunity to hear the petitioners case. Seems irresponsible at that level to leave it to chance that everything will be covered either in the briefs or to wait for someone else on the bench to ask the question?

Why do you think Bush did this "unwittingly," is it that difficult to give him credit when it is due?

Oh, heII, I guess it is a rare occasion when GWB does something correctly. You can have a parade... LOL!

The fact that he's given a short list of names by his handlers, along with the fact he tried to put Harriet on the bench, leaves me to the conclusion that luck had more to do with it than GWB's skills as a leader.

But you can still have your parade... LOL! :thumbsup:

Showboating justices aside... Thomas isn't presenting an opportunity to be swayed by a petitioner's response to a question. Which, IMO, would mean he has already, in part, made up his mind and doesn't feel a need to delve into issues deeper. The world just isn't that black and white. He may listen, but does he listen with an open mind, or does he hear only what he wants to hear?

Considering the SCOTUS only selects about, what is it, 80 cases a year to hear, and their rulings are pretty much final, I would think a justice would want to give every opportunity to hear the petitioners case. Seems irresponsible at that level to leave it to chance that everything will be covered either in the briefs or to wait for someone else on the bench to ask the question?You think because he asks a lot of questions, Scalia is more open-minded than Thomas? (And remember, John Robert's pablum notwithstanding, open-mindedness is precisely not the trait presidents are looking for when they install justices on the Supreme Court.) I picked Scalia because he and Thomas vote together more often than any other justices, if I'm recalling correctly. So you have one active questioner and one non-questioner, results the same. If Thomas is close-minded on the bench, it's not because he is or isn't asking questions, but because the better President Bush got what he bargained for.

Thomas' practice is noted, at least among attorneys, not because anyone thinks it has any influence, positively or negatively, on the outcome, but because it's so unusual for egos like this to leave the stage to others.