WASHINGTON White House Chief of Staff Andy Card once famously said that you don’t roll out a new product in August. Card, the longtime Washington hand whose clients have included the automobile industry, was speaking, perhaps indelicately, about the plan for the Iraq war.
But sometimes, the product introduction is forced by events. This summer, prompted by the unexpected retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Bush administration “product” is John Roberts Jr., the federal appeals court judge who is President Bush’s first nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
During the rollout phase, Roberts already has proven himself to be a sparkling lawyer whose early writings reveal evidence of an ornate and sometimes acid pen, a capital climber who knew how and whom to impress, and very much a man who knows how to handle a good photo opportunity when he sees one (always remembering to smile when shaking the senator’s hand).
His legal views are now undergoing the expected kick-the-tires drill from those who oppose his nomination and even from those who support it. The examination will include the clearly tangential like his editorials against including women in the student body of his all-male private prep school in La Porte, Ind., to his adult views on abortion, civil rights and the power of the federal judiciary.
So far, he’s one thing for sure: consistently conservative.
From the tens of thousands of papers that have been released covering under-the-radar work he did as a young lawyer in the Reagan White House and Justice Department comes a portrait of an unvarnished and unapologetic foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. And one quite likely to be precisely the kind of jurist that Bush wants, for many years to come if he is confirmed by the Senate.
But Roberts’ legal mind is only part of the emerging and formidable toolkit.
What Roberts’ writings, and early media introduction, also demonstrate are considerable political skills. And he was learning them at least in part from watching the masterly Reagan White House, where image maestro Michael Deaver innately understood that how Reagan looked the setting, the colors, the atmospherics was every bit as important as what Reagan said.
In his role as a young associate counsel, Roberts showed an astute grasp of Federal City politics and he seemed to regard himself as much a custodian of Reagan’s image as he did one of the president’s principal legal advisers.
He didn’t spend all his time poring over the Federal Register or some proposed statutory language. Many of his memos show more the mark of a budding Karl Rove than of an emerging Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Roberts’ writings make vivid that he understood the perception-is-everything character of modern politics and the power of the television image.
He most certainly understands the intersection of law and politics and forcefully delivered his views in ways that suggest a level of confidence unusual perhaps even for a Harvard Law graduate.
During the early 1980s, when street drug trafficking and crime were surging, Roberts told his boss Fred Fielding that the administration should tread lightly on which federal agency should handle drug cases.
“Such language plays directly into the hands of those who support the creation of a drug czar and could be very embarrassing to the Administration should this debate be joined anew.” Again, no suggestion of laws being broken.
But also, again, a strong sense of how things would play in a political sense.
Which leads us back to his perhaps understated value, that of being a gifted internal politician. Just watch how he has handled the rollout so far. On the first night, his wife and telegenic young children made for a great first impression.
“They are much more the skills of a successful politician than a nominee,” said Frank Greer, a consultant who counts Bill Clinton among his former clients.
“Remember Ginsburg, Souter, they didn’t have this kind of persona as a smiling blow-dried kind of candidate. But he does. Just the photograph when this was launched. The fawning wife, the kids, it was a very political setting as if he was announcing for office. I also think from everything I have seen he has been running for the Supreme Court his whole life. He approaches it as running for the Supreme Court.”
Check out each photo of him making the rounds of the senators who will be voting on his confirmation. A smile never leaves his face. He pulls it off better than the elected pros he is greeting. He is a study in confidence and optimism. That geniality is likely to help him overcome strenuous questioning of his views. And that manner could make him a suddenly strong force within the court if he is confirmed.
