A WORD FROM CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN G. ROBERTS

THE CENTER FOR OCCASIONAL, IRRATIONAL CONSERVATIVE JUDICIAL OPINIONS IN THE OBAMA ERA

By : Mr. John G. Roberts, Chief Justice, United States Supreme Court; Former White Shoe Litigator, Harvard Law School Graduate, Millionaire

It is good to be Chief Justice. Under the Constitution, federal judges—like me—“hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” U.S. Const. Art. III, § 1. That means I have my job for life, no matter what the President says. I am a very healthy white 53-year-old Republican conservative. I am not going anywhere for many, many years to come. No matter what way the political winds may blow, I will continue to render conservative judicial opinions that protect business, reduce individual liberty and strengthen police authority. I don’t care who is President; I have my job for life and I will hand down opinions however I want, Democratic majorities be damned. Along with my allies Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, you can expect unforgiving conservatism to live on through the Supreme Court, no matter what Obama tries to do in the coming eight years.

Having said that, our Nation now faces some challenging years. Obama is the most liberal President since JFK, and we can expect him to undermine the great advances made by my benefactor, George W. Bush. Democrats now dominate Congress; we can expect them to pass radical legislation that will make war on business, white people and wealth. Nonetheless, I am a federal judge. There is nothing Obama or Congress can do to stop me. I can decide cases any way I want. Congress has the power to impeach me, but unless I really screw up—for instance, I get caught having an orgy with my law clerks or steal money from a secret real estate slush fund in order to go on vacation—it will not use that power. Additionally, even if Congress does impeach me, the Senate must muster a two-thirds majority to convict and remove me. Last I checked, there are only 59 Democratic Senators. The 41 remaining Republicans will never go along with them, so there is no way I can be convicted.

For the last decade, Congress and President Bush governed America through sound conservative policies. Most legislation favored business, banks and the police. Most legislation aimed to stop terrorism by reducing individual liberty. I agreed with virtually all such legislation, so I never found it unconstitutional. Under Obama, however, we can expect socialistic experimentation and hog-wild liberalism from Congress. That will give me, Clarence, Tony and Sam plenty of opportunities to declare laws unconstitutional. If Congress and the President are bleeding-heart commies, then the Court must hold the conservative line by issuing occasional and irrational judicial opinions. This is what separation of powers is all about: To buck your political adversaries in the other two branches, bringing government to a standstill.

I am pleased to support the Center for Occasional, Irrational Conservative Judicial Opinions in the Obama Era. Along with Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and sometimes Kennedy, we promise to decide cases conservatively, if for no other reason than to be conservative when everyone else in Washington is liberal. The voters may have ousted Bush and his conservative supporters in Congress. They may have given Obama a “mandate” for sweeping liberal reforms. But we are federal judges; they did not elect us. They have us for life, and while we breathe, we will decide cases in precisely such a way as to contradict the voters. Furthermore, we will do so in an occasional and irrational manner. For example, we will permit workplace discrimination if the discrimination occurred on Tuesdays or Thursdays. We will allow racially-motivated jury selection if the black juror’s last name is Washington, Jefferson, Jackson or Clinton. We will not allow unreasonable searches or seizures, but only if the police act inappropriately on Friday evenings between 5 PM and 8 PM. We will hold the death penalty to be “cruel and unusual punishment” in any case in which the executioner’s name is Morris Williams, but never if the execution takes place on Palm Sunday. We will allow free speech in all cases involving children with blond hair. Moreover, we will not allow torture, unless the torture takes place in a building with an odd-number address, such as “131 Pearson Avenue.” By imposing mindless qualifications, perplexing rules and absurd requirements on constitutional doctrine, we will uphold conservative values and vex the Democrats.

We look forward to frustrating the Democrats. In a word, we conservatives still have the judicial power to declare: “Not so fast, you left-wingers!” We can derail any legislative effort by deciding that it violates some arcane principle. After all, my former mentor—William H. Rehnquist—assured George W. Bush’s victory in 2000 by applying a constitutional provision that historically favored blacks. That was brilliant judicial work; and today we promise to use the Constitution in the creative way in which it was meant to be used. If Chief Justice Rehnquist could use the Equal Protection Clause to disenfranchise the very race it was intended to protect, then we conservatives can certainly use other constitutional language to disembowel liberal efforts to change this country. We must simply commit ourselves to becoming even more irrational, partisan and shortsighted than we already are. We must commit ourselves to frustrating Obama. If we cannot stop him completely, at least we can make his years difficult. If we cannot beat him, at least we can pester him.

We conservatives are now in the minority. Now we can really start to be annoying. As federal judges, we can buck the liberal trend by making irrational constitutional decisions. We can bring the Obama juggernaut to its knees. Imagine how much fun we will have declaring that new health care entitlements violate the Contracts Clause, or that new stock market regulations deprive wealthy investors of their “liberty to do business” without Due Process under the Fourteenth Amendment. We will really raise hell; and we will have a blast doing it. People used to criticize Congress for obstructing the People’s will. Now we judges have a chance to block everything the People want. After all, we are not accountable to anyone. Congress won’t impeach us as long as the Republicans maintain at least 34 seats in the Senate. We can be as irrational and annoying as we want. Obama may have won the election, but we still have power. And we aim to use it to the fullest extent permitted under our great Constitution.

Obama may have said: “Yes we can.” But we will answer: “Oh, no you can’t.” It is nice to be Chief Justice. And guess what? Oyez, oyez, oyez, muchachos. The Court is now in session, you starry-eyed liberal tree-huggers. Argue all you want; we've already made up our minds.