Earlier today, in a 78-22 vote, the Senate confirmed John Roberts as the new chief justice of the United States. After being confirmed, Roberts was sworn in by acting Chief Justice John Paul Stevens.

But what of Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement? The court's term starts Oct. 3, and there's still a vacant seat -- but not really. O'Connor made her retirement in June contingent upon the fact that her replacement be confirmed before the beginning of the court's 2005 term. Since that's four days from now, it looks like O'Connor will resume her duties when the court convenes on Monday. Bush spokespeople have said that he will announce his O'Connor replacement sometime next week.

Bush announced Roberts as his O'Connor replacement July 19, and his confirmation hearings were scheduled for approximately six weeks later, on Sept. 6, but William Rehnquist's Sept. 3 death stalled the process for about a week as Bush shifted Roberts to the chief justice track. It will probably be December before O'Connor is replaced, as Senate Democrats will want to look extra-carefully at Bush's O'Connor replacement to ensure that the candidate is just as moderate as O'Connor. For Bush to replace her with a person as conservative as Roberts would tilt the court to the right, something the Democrats really don't want.

Let me tell you something: Roberts isn't as bad as everyone's making him out to be. For one, he's more than qualified (something we can't say about all Bush appointees), and for another, he's not the hard-right ideologue that NARAL would have you believe he is. During his confirmation hearings, he acknowledged that he is not the same lawyer that he was in the 1980s when he worked for the Justice Department. His opinions as a federal court judge show that, while he interprets the law conservatively, he takes cases as they come and doesn't try to make his court opinions match some sort of grand, overarching judicial philosophy. Of course Bush was going to appoint a conservative; there's no way around that. The only question was: will this conservative consider his opinion of a case in light of the law itself, or in light of his theoretical model of how the law should work? At the very least, we have a justice who subscribes to the former, not the latter, attitude toward interpreting the law.