Chief Justice leaves Maine hospital
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., left a medical center in Rockport, Maine, at 1l:15 Tuesday morning, and returned to his summer home. An Associated Press online video showed the smiling Roberts walking at a rapid pace out of the Penobscot Bay Medical Center, waving once to onlookers, then getting into a sport utility vehicle.
The Supreme Court public information office said there would be no further information on his recovery from a seizure on Monday afternoon when he fell on a dock near his vacation home close to the village of Port Clyde. Kathleen L. Arberg, the Court’s public information officer, said the Chief Justice would continue with his vacation.
Presidential Press Secretary Tony Snow told reporters who cover the White House that President Bush had talked with Roberts by telephone Tuesday morning, and that Roberts had said he was doing fine. Snow added that the Chief Justice “sounded like he was in great spirits.”
I had refrained from commenting on the clamor, but this morning’s NY Times article and Linda Greenhouse’s (literally) breathless commentary requires some tempering. Justice Douglas missed parts of several terms of court due to medical problems, including a nearly fatal fall from a horse, without attracting such attention. If my recollection is correct, there were other illnesses and recuperations on the post-WWII court. One reason the Justices stopped riding circuit was that so many of them were injured in travel. So it is not the fact of supreme judicial health problems which has spawned the news coverage, but a generally increased attention to the Supreme Court and the recognition of the counterrevolution which the addition of Roberts and Alito has wrought.
Comment by Roger Friedman — August 1, 2007 @ 8:20 am
In all fields, the concept of the “news cycle” and “what is news” has changed. A few weeks ago, President Bush had a routine medical procedure. He was placed under anesthetic, and Dick Cheney technically had presidential authority for a few hours. This had much broader news coverage than it would have received 20 or 30 years ago. To give a slightly more distant example, many Americans didn’t even realize that Franklin Roosevelt was wheelchair-bound, whereas nowadays he probably couldn’t get elected.
The Chief Justice’s seizure has nothing to do with “the counterrevolution which the addition of Roberts and Alito has wrought,” but merely to the changed news cycle.
Comment by Marc Shepherd — August 1, 2007 @ 8:57 am