Roberts is in!

All of the hoopla. All of the gnashing of teeth! All of the protests of "he's dodged the question!" and "How do we know he's in the mainstream?" pale before the political reality. The Reasonable leftists have hijacked the Democratic party will mouth-foam until they shudder. In the end, 78 Senators--including half the Democrats--vote to confirm the Nation's 17th Chief Justice.

My Way News has the story here:

John G. Roberts Jr., a conservative protege of the late William H. Rehnquist, succeeded him Thursday and became the nation's youngest chief justice in two centuries, winning support from more than three-fourths of the Senate after promising he would be no ideologue.

Roberts, at 50, becomes the 17th chief justice, presiding over a Supreme Court that seems as divided as the nation over abortion and other tumultuous social issues. The court opens a new term on Monday.

"The Senate has confirmed a man with an astute mind and kind heart," President Bush said just before Roberts was sworn in by acting Chief Justice John Paul Stevens. "All Americans can be confident that the 17th chief justice of the United States will be prudent in exercising judicial power, firm in defending judicial independence and above all a faithful guardian of the Constitution."

Bush is expected to make his second Supreme Court nomination within days, one that conservatives hope will move the court to the right. Replacing Rehnquist with Roberts keeps the court's current balance, but replacing the moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with a conservative could tilt it rightward.

Roberts called the Senate's 78-22 bipartisan vote for him "confirmation of what is for me a bedrock principle, that judging is different from politics." All of the Senate's 55 Republicans, independent James Jeffords of Vermont and half of the 44 Democrats supported him.

He said he would try to "pass on to my children's generation a charter of self-government as strong and as vibrant as the one that Chief Justice Rehnquist passed on to us."

The Democrats had little choice. Roberts' nomination fills the void left by the death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. If they attempted to derail Roberts' nomination, they would in effect be saying that they distrusted the present configuration of the Court. Few thinking people would buy that, which would leave them with only one conclusion: The Democrats would refuse to nominate any of the President's nominees. This type of partisan obfuscation would discredit them in a heartbeat. Burning precious political capital for such little gain would surely sink the party come the interim elections next year. The far left may pour the money into the war chests, but the Democrats require moderates and swing voters if they're to have any chance of taking back both houses of congress. Kiss that goodbye if they come across as lackies for the Michael Moore wing. So, after much posturing and bloviating, the Democrats bite the hand that feeds them and hands the President an important victory.

Time will tell what kind of a Justice Roberts will be. His performance at the Judicial committee hearings demonstrates that he's a brilliant legal thinker that appears devoted to the constitution. He appeared nearly inflappable in the face of mouth-foaming by such Reasonable Democratic senators as Joseph Biden of Delaware and Chuck Schumer of New York. If he remains that cool and principled during his tenure on the Supreme Court, he'll serve the nation well.