If you even have a question about why I want to write about those three people, let me change the title a little bit. How about "From Chief Justice Roberts to Almost-to-be-Justice Miers to Soon-to-be-Justice Alito?" Does it look more relevant?

Background:

Before this year, all nine of the US Supreme Court Justices had been worked together for more than ten years. Everybody realized that it had come to a point that one or more Justices would step down because of illness or retirement during GWB's second term. As a matter of fact, many Republicans had been expecting this opportunities for Bush to nominate ultra-conservative replacements to influence the American society in the next ten to fifteen years or longer. While Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, usually a swing vote, announced her retirement followed by Chief Justice William Renquist's not so surprising passaway, the drama began.

Development

After Justice O'Connor unexpectedly announced her retirement for family reason, Bush wasted no time bringing out his first nomination, Roberts, trying to get him confirmed by the Senator as soon as possible so that Roberts could participate in all the discussions while the Supreme Court was still in session. Later Roberts was renominated to be the Chief Justice after the passaway of Later William Renquist.

Apparently, this was not a random choice. Robert does not have many personal records existing to show his views on some key issues for his opposors, most of which are Democrats, to base their attacks on. The only memo is the one that he wrote more than twenty years ago for Starr (Yes, it is that famous Ken Starr in the Clinton-Lewensky Saga) to Ted when Roberts was working as a young attorney in Department of Justice. The main purpose of this memo was to provide support for the movement to divest the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. In the memo, it argues that US Congress should have the power to divest the jurisdiction of Supreme Court in some certain areas as long as the due process constitutional rights are provided in lower courts. It is a well-written memo and shows the cleverness of Roberts as a young attorney.

Even though the memo was written more than twenty years ago in an official capacity and it was quite objective, nevertheless it was the only weapon the Democrats had at the hearing. Some of the Democratic members of the Senator Judicial Committee vowed to confront Roberts at the hearing with all sorts of sticky issues, such as abortion rights. Here, I have to briefly discuss the procedure to replace a Supreme Court Justice. Once there is a vacancy in the highest court the President will have the power to nominate the replacement. Then the nomination goes to the 18-member Senator Judicial Committee, usually a partisan committee like all the other Senator Committees are. After a three-day public hearing, the Judicial Committee will vote on the candidate. A simply majority will be sufficient for the Committee to recommend the candidate. Then a vote will be held on the Senator floor to finally confirm the nomination.

Amongst the media hypo of the first Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearing in the last 12 years, there came the well-expected confirmation hearing…