THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT IS CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: “The Chief only speaks out when it serves his interests Again, whenever the Chief Justice speaks of the Court’s ‘legitimacy,’ he is actually speaking about himself–the man cannot separate himself from the Court. No Justice has done more to undermine the Court as a institution that follows law in a dispassionate fashion that Roberts himself. But so long as we avoid 5-4 conservative-liberal splits, he is happy, no matter what the opinion says. . . . For the Chief, voting with the progressives is more important that reaching the best legal conclusion. I’ve long written that the Chief’s judicial lodestar is not the Constitution, but the Gallup Poll. The only issue that gets his dander up is any perceived intrusion about the Judiciary (read John Roberts’s) powers.”