Senate Democrats are preparing to play to the cameras once more while raking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts over the coals, but the fight may not be as fierce as some Liberals want. There's bound to be some huffing and puffing during the confirmation hearings, as many of the radical groups controlling the Democrats demand they fight a battle that cannot be won. It ought to be interesting, as the Senate unanimously approved Roberts in 2003. Though Democrats will probably use the "we need more documents" dodge to avoid an outright filibuster, Roberts will surely be confirmed in the end. One almost has to feel sorry for the Democrats, pushed into this fight by their own base. It's just another indication that the once-great party is losing coherence as various special-interest groups try to use them to pursue their separate agendas.

The Left dislikes Roberts because he's Conservative. That goes without saying, as they seem to hate anyone to the ideological right of Michael Moore these days. The far Right, on the other hand, distrusts Roberts because he's a relative unknown. Ann Coulter wrote, "Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever." She's right about that -- after all, Justices Souter, Kennedy and O'Connor all turned out to be huge disappointments to the Republicans who nominated and voted for them. I'm not sure I'd place Roberts in the category of "stealth nominee," however. If nothing else, he's already been in DC for years, and is less likely to have his head turned by the political atmosphere.

No one will learn anything about Roberts' judicial philosophy from the hearings that can't be discovered in his previous decisions and history. Endless questions regarding how he might rule on variations of hypothetical abortion cases is likely to take up most of the Senate's time. Those who do the best job of looking tough and serious about protecting the "right" to kill unborn children as an easy means of post-coital birth control will make a few points with the far-Left base, however. That's what the power of the United States Supreme Court has come to mean to Liberals -- it's merely a way to keep in place bad court decisions that created or altered rights and laws without going through the Legislative and Executive branches. Anything that threatens to return control to the people or their elected representatives -- as mandated by the Constitution -- threatens them.

The only thing about a Supreme Court Justice's personal beliefs that should matter is how well he can put them aside to do his job. The Supreme Court was created to oversee the rulings of lower courts, to ensure that our rights, and the limits on government set forth in the Constitution, are not violated. Only the elected branches of the government are supposed to enact laws and change the Constitution when necessary. Instead, the Supreme Court has increasingly become the author of autocratic change, bypassing the Constitution they are supposed to uphold. President Bush promised to appoint Supreme Court Justices, should he have the opportunity, who would return to the principles enshrined in the Constitution. Hopefully, Judge Roberts is that kind of person.

We can learn quite a bit about John Roberts' judicial outlook by examining his "french fry ruling" of 2004. Liberals are already pointing to it as an example of how Roberts is "hostile" to civil rights, but the facts show a strict interpretation of the law without bias. (The "mainstream media," however, makes its bias clear. The Associated Press story on Roberts' nomination began, "Judge John G. Roberts' views on abortion may be murky, but there's no question where he stands on the issue of girls eating fries in a subway station.") A twelve-year-old was arrested for violating a ban on eating in the Metro, DC's subway. The girl was taken to a police station and released to her mother. Through her lawyer, the girl claimed her rights were violated, calling the law discriminatory. The lawsuit claimed she was unfairly treated because of her youth -- an adult, being responsible for him or herself, would have merely received a citation for the offense.

Judge Roberts could find no "right to eat french fries on the subway" in the Constitution. This was inexplicable and unforgivable to Liberals, as was his failure to find a Constitutional right for the young to be treated as adults under the law (except, of course, when being sentenced for murder). Writing the unanimous decision, he said that treating the young differently was allowable as long as there was a "rational basis" for doing so. In this case, the logical reason was that the girl had no parent or legal guardian present to take responsibility for her behavior. Roberts agreed with the lower court ruling that the arrest was legal, though he chided the transit police for overreacting, calling the policy that led to the arrest "foolish." Foolish or not, the transit police did have the legal right to enforce an eating ban on the Metro.

An activist judge would have simply overturned the eating ban. He might have discovered a Constitutional "right to eat in public places," using the same mysterious method by which federal judges so frequently divine hidden "rights." The fact that he did not do so -- despite his personal feelings, which he made clear to all -- speaks well of Judge Roberts, and fuels hope that he can be the kind of Justice we need on the Supreme Court.