The SCOTUSs job? To make the laws of the land bend to the realities of the Constitution. To make sure that the government doesn't overstep it's power in granting, or in taking away rights. Perhaps more people should remember that the courts job is not to create law, only to ensure that laws are Constitutional, and that they are applied in a Constitutional manner. Yet, this article doesn't speak, at all, to the Constitutionality of Robert's decisions, but only whether they are "liberal" or "conservative" decisions. I think that the truth is that Roberts isn't especially conservative (limiting free speech is blatantly liberal, in my opinion. See Hugo Chavez, the Chinese government, and the entire concept of politically correct speech), but Roberts does try to apply the Constitution to law, rather than attempt to bend the Constitution through the law (as happened with Roe V. Wade, for example, when the SCOTUS created a "right" to privacy which didn't exist before, and then used the invented right to allow for the legal killing of a certain class of being).

That, in fact, is where politics does come into the picture. Liberals aren't upset with Robert's conservative leanings, but with the Courts current failure to create law. Further, liberals are extremely concerned that the Court will through out those previously Court created laws, and require such decisions as Roe V. Wade to live or die on the basis of their ability to pass as Constitutional amendments. Liberals aren't afraid of Roberts, in other words, they are terrified of our system working as intended.

1. You are confusing the liberal-conservative axis with the libertarian-communitarian axis in your discussion of free speech. Limiting freedom of speech has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism -- one need only look at such counterexamples to your "liberals limit speech" argument such as flag burning or pornography to see that justices of both of these categories limit speech they don't like. On the other hand, using a different classification scheme, libertarians would limit no speech which they see as an absolute right whereas communitarians would limit speech they feel is hurtful to others. There are, of course, liberal libertarians, conservative libertarians, liberal communitarians, and conservative communitarians.

2. Also, though liberals on the Court decided Roe v Wade on dubious grounds, the same case could have been decided with the same outcome by using the Due Process clause to compare a woman's liberty interest with a fetus' life interest and determining that the liberty interest trumps the life interest until point "x". Such an opinion would have been more direct and legally sustainable.

>>as happened with Roe V. Wade, for example, when the SCOTUS created a "right" to privacy which didn't exist before<< That's just laughable. For starters, Amendments 1, 3, and 4 in the Bill of Rights are ALL concerned with the issue of privacy, whether the word actually appears in the document or not. (First Amendment: privacy of beliefs; Third Amendment: privacy of the home; Fourth Amendment: privacy of person and possessions). Second, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of privacy well before Roe v. Wade. Here's an excerpt from Justice Douglas's opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965): "In NAACP v. Alabama [1958] we protected the 'freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations,' noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid 'as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association.' Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion." Try to rein in your paranoid delusions, if you can, and try to stop running from the fact that YOU are responsible for putting an absolutely criminal administration into the White House, TWICE. (And, of course, their reactionary henchmen in the SCOTUS.) Liberals are the LEAST of this country's problems, and they will, of course, end up FIXING the problems again, as they always have. Remember: YOU are the problem.

1) If we come up with enough labels for political beliefs, then every body can avoid ever having to actually take responsibility for the types of people that they associate with, and for their beliefs as defined by those associations. I don't buy it. I'm a conservative even though I disagree with some conservative positions. A Liberal is a liberal, in my opinion, with only a concession to say that there are liberals you can talk to (a Lieberman, for instance) and liberals that should be killed (Hugo Chavez), and then there are the middle-of the road liberals who don't have the intelligence of Lieberman, or the balls of Chavez.

2) Your concept of a more acceptable (defensible?) Roe V. Wade is actually just as tenuous. It leaves to the court (and all courts in the future) an argument about where "point x" is. Point X could be so far moved that the fetus becomes more important than the woman, or so far in the other direction that the woman can get an abortion while ordering a taco at Taco Beuno. Abortion has no Constitutional protection and would require an amendment to become protected beyond the political whims of future administrations. Liberals, of course, are resistant to this legal adoption of an abortion amendment because they suspect it would fail (and I agree).

And that somehow changes the fact that it was created by the court? You realize how ridiculous that argument is? The fact is that there is no Constitutional right to prviacy (there is no privacy of religion, there is free exercise of religion. Making up your own definitions doesn't make you correct.)

There is much to be ashamed of in regards to the behavior of this administration. I'm certainly as ashamed as you are of our leadership. You should be further ashamed that the best your side could put up in 2000 was an environmental wacko coming straight out of his own very corrupt administration. Then, as if to outdo yourselves, you put up a John Kerry in 2004, a man who blantently refused to take a position or to stand behind positions he had already taken. Further, he was in the pocket of AIG, he'd discraced his fellow service men (while admitting himself that he was a war criminal), attacked free trade while his wife's company (and the source of his fortune) was sending American jobs overseas. You should be ashamed that you guys put up such terrible candidates that even those of us who nearly got sick voting for Bush had no better choice. Now, worse, you guys are giving us a black guy with a Muslim name (has about as much of a real chance of being president as I do) and the wife of one of the most contentious figures in modern American politics, who has her own slew of conspiracy theories, and shady dealings behind her. Way to go!

Why is it that private PROPERTY is sacred above all for you toads, and any other version of privacy, such as the privacy of one's person, is not? If government encroaches upon your outhouse you have a fit, but if it invades a woman's body, that's cool with you? ---And where did you get the notion that it's okay to kill people, especialy elected heads of state, for their convictions? You are a complete asshole. your Opinions on this, and all other topics are worthless. Just thought you might want to know.

I've got a right to private property, it says so in the constitution. Even then, the state's interest outweighs mine, to the point that my property can be taken even if just to build a mall (as the SCOTUS decided last year). Now, if there is a compelling state interest in taking my private property in order to create a broader tax base, then certainly the same argument can be made to circumvent a woman's (made-up) right to privacy when it encroaches upon the future tax revenues to the federal government through income taxes, and to states through property and sales taxes.

You're out of your league.