Decision Points

John Roberts flew in from London, where he was teaching for the summer. I knew Roberts’s record: top of his class at Harvard and Harvard Law School, law clerk to Justice Rehnquist, dozens of cases argued before the Supreme Court. Roberts had been nominated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992, but he wasn’t confirmed before the election. I had nominated him to a seat on the same court in 2001. He was confirmed in 2003 and had established a solid record. Behind the sparkling résumé was a genuine man with a gentle soul. He had a quick smile and spoke with passion about the two young children he and his wife, Jane, had adopted. His command of the law was obvious, as was his character.

    Having coffee with John Roberts in the West Wing Sitting Hall the morning after his nomination.
White House/Eric Draper
    I talked about the decision with Dick, Harriet, Andy, Al, and Karl. They liked Roberts, but he was not at the top of all lists. Dick and Al backed Luttig, who they felt was the most dedicated conservative jurist. Harriet supported Alito because he had the most established judicial record. Andy and Karl shared my inclination toward Roberts. I solicited opinions from others, including some of the younger lawyers in the White House. One was Brett Kavanaugh , whom I had nominated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Brett told me that Luttig, Alito, and Roberts would all be solid justices. The tiebreaker question, he suggested, was which man would be the most effective leader on the Court—the most capable of convincing his colleagues through persuasion and strategic thinking.
    I believed Roberts would be a natural leader. I didn’t worry about him drifting away from his principles over time. He described his philosophy of judicial modesty with a baseball analogy that stuck with me: “A good judge is like an umpire—and no umpire thinks he is the most important person on the field.”
    On Tuesday, July 19, I called John to offer him the job. We made the announcement that night in the East Room. Everything went according to plan until, during my primetime televised speech, four-year-old Jack Roberts slipped out of his mother’s grip and started dancing around the floor. We later learned he was imitating Spider-Man. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and it took all my concentration to continue my remarks. Eventually Jane reclaimed little Jack. The audience had a good laugh, and Jack’s family got slide-show material for life.
    In early September, three days before Roberts’s confirmation hearing was scheduled to begin, Karl called me late on a Saturday night. Laura and I were in bed, and nobody calls with good news at that hour. Karl told me the chief justice had just died. Rehnquist was one of the greats. He had served thirty-three years on the Supreme Court, nineteen of them in the center chair. He had conducted Dad’s swearing-in as president in 1989 and mine in 2001. As my Second Inauguration approached, Rehnquist was ailing with thyroid cancer. He hadn’t been seen in public for weeks. But when it came time to read the oath of office, his voice boomed loud and clear: “Repeat after me: I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear …”
    I now had two vacancies on the Court to fill. I decided that John Roberts’s leadership ability made him a perfect fit for chief justice. John excelled at his hearing, was confirmed by a wide majority, and came back to the East Room for his swearing-in. The moment showed what unlikely turns life can take. John Roberts, who thirteen years earlier assumed that his chance to be a judge had passed, was now chief justice of the United States.

    With O’Connor’s seat still vacant, I felt strongly that I should replace her with a woman. I didn’t like the idea of the Supreme Court having only one woman, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Laura agreed—and shared her views with the press.
    This was a rare occasion when Laura’s advice spilled out into the public, but far from the only time I relied on her thoughtful counsel. Laura had an instinctive feel for the pulse of the country. She wasn’t involved inevery issue, and she didn’t want to be. She picked areas that appealed to her—including education, women’s health, rebuilding the Gulf Coast after Katrina, AIDS and malaria, and freedom in Burma and Afghanistan.
    I instructed Harriet and the search committee to draw up a new list with more women. The candidates she found were impressive. But there were