Countdown to Roberts confirmation hearings -

The drums are beating for the upcoming hearings on John Roberts, but I'm still not really sure what to expect. Here's a Fox News article that anticipates a long confirmation process, and an LA Times editorial from a Duke law professor trying to whip up some opposition, but I really haven't gotten the sense that we're going to see any real fireworks. NOW and NARAL have managed to marginalize themselves ever further by going right to the extreme rhetoric well, but other than that, opposition seems kind of muted.

Chemerinsky, the author of the LA Times piece, is concerned that Roberts would "change the law dramatically in key areas" and points to evidence that Roberts, like the infamous Bork!, doesn't believe there is a consitutional right to privacy. That raises a question for me. A good amount of time has passed since the Bork hearings - if privacy is really that much of a burning issue, why haven't we seen any legislative action on it? If we want a right to privacy to be there, why don't we write it in there, instead of relying on a nine-person panel with ever-changing membership to tell us it's there and what its contours are? If there's one thing I've learned in two weeks of law school, it's that if you don't like the common law result, pass a damn statute.