"This is the sort of person who rises when a movement is mature and running things."

David Brooks is in love with the Roberts nomination. Really! He's trying to write poetry to it -- it, the nomination -- not to Roberts. The poetry comes out in a dorky, Brooksian way, but it's rather touching, nonetheless. What he loves so much about it that it shows "the face of today's governing conservatism." And it's such a charming face:

Roberts is a conservative practitioner, not a conservative theoretician. He is skilled in the technical aspects of the law, knowledgeable about business complexities (that's why he was hired to take on Microsoft) and rich in practical knowledge. He is principled and shares the conservative preference for judicial restraint, but doesn't think at the level of generality of, say, a Scalia. This is the sort of person who rises when a movement is mature and running things.