The article was rather deficient, since it did little more than spew inference after inference about what the author THINKS motivates Obama’s SC choices.
It does nothing to enlighten us as to WHO he might put on the court. More on that later. But first, I want to address John Robert’s “umpire” theory of judging. Roberts said, in essence, that a proper judge only calls balls and strikes. But let’s work with the analogy. Anyone who follows baseball knows that where a judge stands (left shoulder of catcher, right shoulder) and how high or low he crouches affects how balls a strikes are called. Some referees have a reputation for calling a wide strike zone, some give the high strike, and some are known to play favorites or give superstars more leeway. By calling himself a “mere umpire”, Roberts does not acknowledge that that alone does not describe HOW he will call the game. When you look at Roberts, again using the analogy, he stood on the right shoulder and, thus, called strikes wide on the right and tight on the left. He also tended to favor the superstar batter or pitcher at the expense of the opposing journeyman pitcher or batter. Obama merely seeks to balance that bias with judges who sit on the left shoulder and who might expect more from the elite players and thus call a harder game for them.
And who might Obama put on the Supreme Court? People like Stephen Carter or Akil Amar from Yale, Kathleen Sullivan from Stanford, Elena Kagan from Harvard (who he taught with at Chicago), and Sunstein, mentioned earlier. All brilliant, all in their early 50s or late 40s, all with impeccable credentials. And isn’t that what we WANT on the Supreme Court?
