It's OK to objectify

There are scant few moments where I'm better off not knowing all the details about certain public figures.

I don't really need to know Bill Clinton was a philanderer - John F. Kennedy probably pulled way more action, and he was still considered a good president.

I don't need to know George W. Bush is the most physically fit president ever. I just need to know he's mentally fit. I'm still waiting for proof of that, but you get the idea.

And now, I really don't need to know all about Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John Roberts' personal politics. All I need to know about Roberts is whether he can and will be objective in court, whether he can interpret the law clearly.

Looking at his career, Roberts appears almost apolitical. True, he has made cases and statements saying cases like Roe v. Wade should be overturned, however his justification was always based on law, not on ideology. There are few people who could say with authority whether Roberts were pro-life or pro-choice, and with a Supreme Court justice, that is the way it should be.

There are things you do need to know about presidents and other elected officials. Things like their personal ideology and personal politics are crucial to how they get hired, or elected. In requiring that type of disclosure, politicians are evaluated differently than any other job in the world.

That requirement also slightly skews their own hiring practices, requiring the same disclosure from their potential employees.

The potential employees I am talking about are congressional and presidential appointees. Congressmen want to know everything about potential appointees, from their views on global warming to their preference in underwear - it all seems to matter to them. This is where things go wrong. Appointees are oftentimes approved or rejected because of their politics, not whether or not they are qualified for the job.

That's why John Bolton had such a hard time being approved as UN ambassador. True, he has a horrendous history of workplace bullying, but he also is a staunch conservative, a fact that probably saved his job as ambassador. Democrats were so turned off by him that Republicans that would never hire such a curmudgeon for their own business kept pushing him, and though he wasn't approved in Congress, it made his out-of-session appointment possible.

Personal politics are at the center of John Roberts' appointment hearings, but for the complete opposite reasons: Roberts appears to have no personal politics whatsoever. It is impossible to believe he really has no opinions, but no one on either side of the aisle has been able to pin down his politics. His answers during his appointment hearing have not been exactly evasive, but he has refused to comment on his personal opinion on topics such as abortion and affirmative action, both infuriating and pleasing both Democrats and Republicans. About the only indication that Roberts sits on the conservative end of the political spectrum is that he was picked by the Bush administration, a fact that has galvanized a good portion of Democrats against Roberts.

The thing is, what Roberts believes on issues like abortion and in his personal religious convictions is irrelevant to his position on the Supreme Court. Roberts is interviewing for a job to be the foremost objectivist in the country, that of Chief Justice of the United States. His job would be that of mediator and law interpreter, not instigator or lawmaker. In that situation, Roberts' personal view of gay marriage is about as important as his favorite flavor of ice cream: it doesn't matter. As Chief Justice, Roberts needs to do nothing more than make sure a law is legal in terms of the Constitution. Were he to rule by his own personal convictions, he would not be an appropriate justice.

By all accounts, Roberts seems to have maintained exemplary objectivity in his short career as a judge. Roberts' most intriguing aspect, however, is that his career prior to being a judge is just as objective. He never seems to have held a hard line on politics either way. For every argument that he would overturn Roe v. Wade, citing a case he argued in 1990, it can be countered that he did pro bono work for a gay rights group in 1995. Neither of these cases offers any insight into Roberts' personal views, but it shows he does not make his decisions based on ideology. The man seems to respect and believe the law above all else.

One only needs to look at the careers of Justices William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor to show that a conservative judge, when chosen based on strengths in interpreting law, will place his or her ideology aside to rule fairly. Roberts appears even more fixed in the middle than O'Connor.

Knee-jerk reactionary Democrats (wow, ironic) need to step back and realize that, in this case, personal politics are not the issue.