Roberts versus Roberts: Just how radical is the chief justice?

Jeffrey Rosen writing in The New Republic: “For the past few years, I’ve been giving Roberts the benefit of the doubt, hoping that he meant it when he talked about the importance of putting the bipartisan legitimacy of the Court above his own ideological agenda. But, while Roberts talked persuasively about conciliation, it now appears that he is unwilling to cede an inch to liberals in the most polarizing cases. If Roberts continues this approach, the Supreme Court may find itself on a collision course with the Obama administration–precipitating the first full-throttle confrontation between an economically progressive president and a narrow majority of conservative judicial activists since the New Deal.”
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Ed Whelan comments on Rosen’s article at NRO’s Bench Memos: “The most meaningful measure of any chief justice is whether he gets the law right and whether, to the limited extent that it is within his power, he leads the Court to get the law right. There’s ample room for fair debate on these topics. But that debate isn’t advanced by positing imaginary pledges and by exaggerating the ability of the chief justice to forge consensus on hotly contested issues.”

Matthew J. Franck, also comments on the article at NRO Bench Memos.