Perhaps I’m being premature. But as it looks now, Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, is nothing so much as a leader to be pitied. He has presided over the United States Supreme Court during a time of its possibly, if not probably, irreversible decline.
Of course, no one, save those intimately familiar with the court’s proceedings, can know how effective Roberts is in dealing with the court’s eight other justices. After all, he has no power over them, scant authority and, clearly, precious little influence. What we can know though is that Roberts is an unwilling if not also unwitting victim of the times in which we live.
Why so dramatic a word as “victim”? Because if Roberts is known for being anything it is as an institutionalist. An institutionalist who, from his perch as Chief Justice, has wanted nothing so much as to protect the Supreme Court – protect its reputation, and such as remained of its dignity and legitimacy, from the slime that now sullies much of America’s political landscape.
But it was not to be. From the start Roberts was forced to fight an uphill battle, presiding over the Court during a time in which every American institution, without a single exception, has suffered from diminished levels of respect, and of trust. Though for years the Supreme Court remained somewhat exempt from this pernicious trend – its levels of approval remained higher longer than its institutional counterparts both inside and out of government – it has not been able to resist it altogether. For years it too declined in the nation’s esteem. But after this week’s debacle, its status in what historically was its place in America’s pantheon is likely to be greatly, and permanently, reduced. Roberts’s best efforts notwithstanding, what has happened in the last seven days could be the institutional equivalent of a coup de grace.
The Court this week sustained not one but two bad blows. The two are related, but separate and distinct. The first is the opinion itself. The earthshaking opinion that is nearly certain before the end of June to overturn Roe v. Wade, which for approximately a half century gave women the legal right to obtain an abortion. The second bad blow is of course the leak. The leak of the draft opinion on abortion that violated not only the court’s tradition but its decorum – both of which are of maximal importance to the Chief Justice.
To Roberts the unprecedented leak likely is even worse than the extremity of the (preliminary) opinion. For it implies disarray, and disorder. The leak implies a court that for the indefinite future is destined to be irreparably divided – as polarized and politicized as the rest of America. It also implies a leader who, while without fail is cordial and courteous, is not especially competent. Sad fact is any reasonably well-intentioned leader unable even to keep his own house in order is less to be envied than pitied.