With the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts at an end, Judge Robert Bork of the Hudson Institute, the greatest Supreme Court Justice never actually permitted to take his rightful place on the high court, and David Rivkin, a lawyer who served in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, have a must-read piece on what the hearings really revealed:
“[F]ar from being about Roberts or any future nominee,” they note, “the pyrotechnics of the Senate hearings are attributable to the fact that the philosophic gulf between our two political parties has grown vast – and nowhere more so than with respect to the federal judiciary. Most Republicans want courts that are legal institutions, not political bodies. Democrats, on the other hand, insist on courts devoted to specific policy outcomes (invariably items on the liberal agenda).
“Not content with helping transform the judiciary into the most important player in domestic affairs, and most certainly in cultural trends, Democrats push for courts that are activist in foreign and defense policy, micromanaging, for example, the treatment of captured enemy combatants.”