John F. Harris, the Politico founder editor, should don a costume of a Jester. We saw Harris recommend that Joe Biden use trash talk to reverse his political woes a week ago. And on Thursday, he took yet more silly sauce to urge Chief Justice John Roberts, despite being sixteen years younger than the retiring Stephen Breyer, follow suit by no later than this summer.
Why? Although we all understand the reasons, Harris refuses to admit that Harris is a partisan libertarian who wishes to conveniently shift the court’s ideology to the left. He wants Roberts to retire so Biden can nominate a leftist to replace him.
Harris made what seems to be his weekly clown act in “Take The Hint, John Roberts — It’s Time For You To Retire, Too.”
First Harris takes Roberts’ statement of seventeen years ago as a sign that the Chief Judge should retire soon. It is not too soon for Biden, but there are still opportunities for a small Democrat majority with the vice-president voting to confirm a liberal replacement.
Judges are like umpires,” John Roberts famously said at his confirmation hearing as Chief Justice. “Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them … While they ensure everyone follows the rules of play, this is only a part of their role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.”
…One way to hear Roberts’ pious words is as a gesture of respect. The truth is much more complex. But he’s describing an ideal that right-thinking people should honor in theory, and judges and justices should strive at least to approximate in practice.
Roberts has fought valiantly for the integrity and reputation of his court during his tenure as chief justice.
There is one sure way, however, that Roberts could prove he deserves the benefit of the doubt: He could join Justice Stephen Breyer in announcing his retirement at the end of the court’s term this summer.
Oder he could just wait until a Republican occupies Oval Office and a Republican majority is in the Senate. However, that is not something Harris would be proposing.
This surprising act would be most likely to advance what the Chief Justice says he wants — a revival of public faith in the Court’s institutional legitimacy, and that its rulings flow from something other than the personal agendas of individual justices or the partisan machinations that placed them in their jobs.
Yes, there are no partisan machinations under Democrats. Roberts should therefore leave now, according to Harris clown act poorly disguised and noble political analysis.
Harris ends his tirade at Roberts by saying that if Roberts doesn’t follow his lead to sacrifice for a more liberal Supreme Court, here is the final shot:
...let him stay in his job another 17 years and fully earn the cult-of-personality status he says he doesn’t want. Until then, though, people are entitled to roll their eyes during John Roberts’ sermons about the purity of the judicial branch.
We are grateful for your slander, Mr. Founding Editor. This pretty much ensures that Roberts won’t be giving you clownish advice.
About Post Author
