John Roberts Is Either Dumb or Racially Obtuse. And He’s Not Dumb.

If Chief Justice John Roberts has uttered two quotable sentences in his career that will likely appear high up in his New York Times obituary, they are these. The first comes from his 2005 confirmation hearing: “My job is to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.” The line was meant to convey to senators and America that he would be a neutral arbiter of constitutional interpretation, sans ideological agenda. It was later picked up by the entire conservative legal movement and repeated b...