A Wednesday letter criticizes President Bush for nominating John Roberts to be chief justice because he is a “rookie.” If the writer had bothered to do any research on this at all he might have learned that very few chief justices are promoted to the top job from the ranks of the associate justices of the Supreme Court.
In the entire history of the United States under the Constitution (since 1789), only 16 men have served as chief justice of the U.S. (while 42 men have served as president.) Out of that 16, only three have been promoted to that office from the associate justice level: Edward White (1910), Harlan Stone (1941) and William Rehnquist (1986). Therefore, most chief justices are nominated to the highest position on the court without any previous experience on the Court.
John Marshall and Earl Warren, who are generally regarded as the two greatest chief justices to ever serve, had no prior judicial experience at all!
Judge Roberts is more than qualified to be chief justice. He certainly has more “right stuff” for the job than some of the bozos sitting in judgement of him on the Senate Judiciary committee!
Larry Miller
Camano Island
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