David Brooks on the upcoming confirmation. A fascinating observation:

I love thee also, Roberts nomination, because now we probably won’t have to endure another bitter and vulgarized chapter of the culture war.

Confirmation battles have come to seem of late like occasions for bitterly divided Catholics to turn political battles into holy war Armageddons. Most of the main Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are Catholics who are liberal or moderate (Kennedy, Biden, Durbin, Leahy), and many of the most controversial judges or nominees are Catholics who are conservative (Scalia, Thomas, Pryor). When they face off, you get this brutal and elemental conflict over the role morality should play in public life.

Roberts is indeed a Catholic (if he’s confirmed, there will be four on the court, three Protestants and two Jews), but he’s not the sort to spark the sort of debate that leads to bitter Catholic vs. Catholic meshugas. He’s not a holy warrior, and his wife is active in the culturally heterodox Feminists for Life.

The Robertses are evidently the sort of people, like most Americans, who confound culture war categories.