Here Come the Judge

It has been a couple of days since George Bush named his appointee to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy of Sandra Day O’Conner. You most like been inundated with reasons why John Roberts Jr. is the greatest American ever born or the worst humanity has had to offer since, well, the guy who appointed him. Now that the blowhards have had their say, let you give me my opinion of Roberts: I don’t have one. And here is the problem with the current state of news today. The anchor sets up a topic then brings on two guests to “discuss” the topic, both with opposite extreme views. And at the end, we, the viewer, have to decide for ourselves which view we disagree with less. No one reports the news anymore, they prefer to create it. And anyone who keeps on brings up Roberts wife, stop it, they are not confirming his wife, they are confirming him. Granted this is almost poetic considering Bush’s people made John McCain’s wife out to be a crack addict in the 2000 primary, so what goes around always comes back around.

So in the end, this leaves me without a quality opinion on Roberts. Now this is what I would like to know about John Roberts, what are his thoughts on Eminent Domain? One thing that I do not want to happen to me is that the government to take away my home so they can build another outlet for the evil empire (Wal-Mart). Then and only then could I form an opinion about the judicial nominee. I know Eminent Domain it is not a hot topic of the day like abortion and the like, but here's the thing; I don’t really care if abortion is illegal or not. Nothing in my life would change if abortion was legal or not. Same thing with gay marriage – doesn’t affect me either way. I won’t wake up one morning, look at the headline on the paper that read “Gay Marriage Legalized,” and think to myself, “Darn, not I won’t be able to buy a house now.” Yet another thing that won’t affect me either way – flag burning. Of course that’s assuming that they don’t do the burning while in my home.

So Eminent Domain is something I hope senators will be bring up at the confirmation hearings in about six week. And hear in lies one of the biggest problems in America today, how slow it takes anything to get done. O’Conner announced her intent to retire about a month ago. Roberts wasn’t nominated until last week. Confirmation hearings are about six weeks away. And if everything goes swiftly, Roberts won’t be on the court until October at the earliest. That is almost a half a year it will take for us to get a new judge and that’s only if there are no problems. This should take no longer than month to able to push through.

In other Supreme Court news, recently when ask if or when he was going to retire, Chief Justice of Supreme Court, William Renquist replied, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” It’s nice to know that our nation’s top judge is quoting PeeWee Herman. We really need to reevaluate that life term thing.