President Bush made a bold choice in selecting a distinguished lawyer and federal appeals court judge, John Roberts, to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. “I have thought about a variety of people, people from different walks of life,” the president told reporters yesterday. “I do have an obligation to think about people from different backgrounds.” But in the end, Mr. Bush resisted the politically correct pressure to limit his choices to a particular gender or race. The president evidently wanted the most qualified jurist, one most capable of delivering on Mr. Bush’s campaign promise of restoring a sound constitutionalism to the Court. That is, a justice who would not legislate from the bench.

Mr. Bush could scarcely have done better than Mr. Roberts. “Mr. Roberts is one of the most accomplished and brilliant legal minds that I have seen in my 27 years as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee,” the then-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch, told his colleagues when Mr. Roberts was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2003. “He is widely regarded as one of the best appellate attorneys of his generation.” He is also one of the most accomplished, having argued before the Supreme Court a remarkable 39 cases, more than even the nigh legendary Thurgood Marshall. Mr. Roberts has also served as law clerk to Justice Rehnquist, associate counsel to President Reagan, and principal deputy solicitor general at the Department of Justice.

But Mr. Bush was also careful to choose a nominee who commands respect from the other side of the aisle. In 2003, 156 members of the bar of the District of Columbia sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsing his nomination. Signatories included a one-time solicitor general under President Clinton, Seth Waxman, as well as a former counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton, Lloyd Cutler. “Although, as individuals, we reflect a wide spectrum of political party affiliation and ideology, we are united in our belief that John Roberts will be an outstanding federal court of appeals judge and should be confirmed by the United States Senate,” they wrote, expressing the view that he represents the “best of the bar.”

Mr. Bush is said to have, upon meeting Judge Roberts, found himself comfortable with the candidate. Mr. Bush had signaled his willingness to work with the Senate, and with Democrats in particular, by consulting with 70 senators, including three-fourths of the Democratic conference, before picking a nominee. Just last week, Senator Lieberman, a Democrat of Connecticut, cited Mr. Roberts as one of a few potential nominees who would not spark a filibuster. “The administration has taken very encouraging and constructive steps,” Mr. Lieberman told the Hartford Courant.

Some Democrats, however, were already declaring war. Senator Schumer, who, had he come face to face with Chief Justice John Marshall probably would have fainted over his views on abortion, acknowledged that “Judge Roberts has outstanding legal credentials and an appropriate legal temperament and demeanor,” but argued, “The burden is on a nominee to the Supreme Court to prove that he is worthy, not on the Senate to prove he is unworthy.” Mr. Schumer insisted that because Mr. Roberts will replace Justice O’Connor, who was a swing vote on many issues, a proper vetting of his views must be undertaken by the Senate before confirmation.

Well, let us all look forward to such a hearing and see what it gets for Mr. Schumer and the proud city of Buffalo. A “Confirmable Conservative” is what The New York Sun called Judge Roberts in the headline over the profile by Luiza Savage published on our front page back in April. Our guess is that, as we predicted, most senators will understand that Mr. Roberts was nominated by a president with a strong popular mandate for appointing conservatives to the bench. The burden is on Mr. Schumer to show that the president’s chosen nominee is somehow unfit – not that he disagrees politically with the Democratic Party. Mr. Bush, though remaining faithful to his campaign pledges, has made an effort to appoint a consensus candidate. If the Democrats really mean what they say about civility in Washington, they’ll give Mr. Roberts a speedy confirmation.