ROGER SIMON COLUMN
SEPTEMBER 14, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Shortly after he left the second day of hearings on the confirmation of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States, Ted Kennedy went to a reception a few blocks from the Capitol and poked some rueful fun.
Roberts had remarked that a Supreme Court Justice is merely an impartial observer in the game of life and not a player.
"Judges are umpires," Roberts said in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I will remember it is my job to call balls and strikes, and not pitch or bat."
Roberts also said: "Umpires don't make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role."
Kennedy, who clearly thinks judges play more than a limited role - - they determined who the President of the United States was in the 2000 election, for example - - told an old joke at the reception that went like this:
There are three umpires at a baseball game and after a close play at the plate, the umpires call the man out. The manager runs out of the dugout and asks each umpire why he called the man out.
The first umpire says, "He's out because I calls 'em as I sees 'em."
The second umpires says, "He's out because I calls 'em as they are,"
And the third umpire says, "He's out because I called him out."
After delivering the punch line, Kennedy smiled a bleak smile.
Humor may be all that is left for the Democrats. The hearings are continuing exactly as the White House wanted them to, making them one of the few White House victories in recent months.
Roberts is being earnest and enigmatic. He has said virtually nothing of any substance and nothing of any controversy as of yet.
Todd Purdum of the New York Times, who called Roberts "Delphic," also said, "At times Judge Roberts's responses were so bland as to tremble on the precipice of platitude."
Roberts was probably pleased by that. The "precipice of platitude" gets you to the Supreme Court.
Controversial specificity sometimes can keep you from it, as Robert Bork found out in 1987 when he was denied a seat on the High Court by a 58-42 vote of the U.S. Senate following a particularly powerful evisceration by Sen. Kennedy.
This will not happen to Roberts. Even if the Democrats should filibuster his confirmation - - and they won't - - Roberts seems a sure bet to get, if not exceed, a filibuster-proof 60 votes.
Even Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who is toying with a run for the presidency in 2008, and can be disarmingly folksy when in attack mode, was unable to get a hold on Roberts, let alone pin him to the mat.
"His answers are misleading," Biden complained at one point.
"They may be misleading," Arlen Specter, the Republican chair of the Judiciary Committee shot back, "but they are his answers."
No matter what was said about him or to him, Roberts remained unrattled, the perfect umpire.
In fact, only one piece of media coverage possibly may have irritated Roberts: In a Dana Milbank article in the Washington Post, Milbank observed that Roberts was avoiding direct answers and said, "Roberts, his bald spot exposed under the studio lights, offered a stream of such evasions."
Evasions, Roberts could forgive.
But 50-year-old men do not take references to their bald spots lightly.
Posted by rsimon at September 14, 2005 02:31 PM