Roberts Rated Two Snaps and a Circle

It has been tradition for the ABA to rate Judges nominated for Judical posts by the President.



For more than 50 years, the ABA has evaluated the credentials of nominees for the federal bench, though the nation's largest lawyers' group has no official standing in the process. Supreme Court nominees get the most scrutiny.

This was the forth time Roberts was evaluated. He was deemed "qualified" in 1992, but the Congress did not vote on him as then President Bush was a lame duck. He was rated "well qualified," the ABA's highest rating, in 2001 and again in 2003 when nominated for the D.C. Appeals Court.

This time, however, the ABA felt that "well qualified" just was insufficient to express the organization's feelings about Roberts extreme qualifications for the Supreme Court. So the new ABA rating of "two snaps and a circle" was created.

Of course, the ABA found all of the filibustered judges to be "qualified" or "well qualified" but that didn't stop the Democrats from the unprecedented refusal to allow a vote.

With the ABA's two snaps and circle approval, it will be interesting to see what the Democrats do with Roberts' nomination.