As all the news organizations are reporting, Bush has nominated Appellate Judge John Roberts, Jr. to be the next Supreme Court Justice. From what I’ve read of him, he seems to have a pleasant demeanor (unlike U.N. Ambassador nominee John Bolton) and just may be innocuous enough to be confirmed. But as the CBS News article cited above reports, Roberts is the personification of the White male establishment:

CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen says Roberts is “the Establishment personified – Harvard College, Harvard Law School, clerkship with Justice William H. Rehnquist and a job at the Solicitor General’s office. He was a millionaire lawyer in private practice who gave it up for a spot on the bench worth less than $200,000 per year.” . . . Roberts is well known in Washington circles and a favorite of the conservative lawyers of the Federalist Society.

I will leave it up to the pundits to debate whether he should be the next Supreme Court Justice. Something tells me that unfortunately, he has a pretty good chance. But to me, he represents another example of how the conservative White male establishment is reasserting its cultural and political dominance.

One big recent example of this was when Benedict XVI was named the newest Pope, after there was plenty of speculation and hope that a non-White, non-European cardinal would become the next Pope. And now, after widespread speculation that Bush would name a Hispanic or another woman to the Supreme Court, he names someone who represents the epitome of the conservative White male establishment.

As the analogy goes, when the powerful feel threatened in some way, they react in full concert with each other, and in force. In other words, the conservative White male establishment is in no danger of being overthrown anytime soon and if anything, Robert’s nomination is an example of how they’re becoming even more entrenched.