And we should care because ...?

In a move sure to dramatically affect John Roberts' prospects of being confirmed by the Senate as the next Chief Justice of the United States - NOT! - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has publicly stated his opposition to Roberts.

However, despite the fact that Bloomberg and my dog have about the same degree of relevance to Roberts' confirmation prospects, it's still an interesting development.  As far as I know, Bloomberg is the only Republican in the United States holding any sort of prominent elected office who has stated that Roberts shouldn't be confirmed.  And, according to the NYT article linked above, the White House promptly conveyed its displeasure to Bloomberg's campaign. 

Bloomberg, of course, is the Republican mayor of an overwhelmingly Democratic city, is up for reelection this year, and would like to keep his job.  Apparently, he thinks that a good way of doing that is to break with the national party on an issue that, while utterly unimportant to him (because he has no role in it), is actually quite important to the national party.  Conventional wisdom is that Bloomberg will beat Democratic nominee-to-be Fernando (Freddy) Ferrer, which means Ferrer will likely attack, and a very likely avenue for attack is to try to link Bloomberg to the increasingly unpopular Bush administration and the not-popular-in-NYC national GOP.  So perhaps Bloomberg thought that now is a good time to establish some distance between himself and the national Republican establishment, and that the Roberts nomination is a high-profile yet relatively cost-free way of doing it.  Might prove to be a smart move on Bloomberg's part.

My dog, incidentally, has not yet stated his position on whether Roberts should be confirmed.