No sooner did the hearings on the nomination of Judge Roberts to be chief justice of the United States get under way than we found ourselves with a reaction we didn’t expect. We had expected to have a sense of irritation at the hearings, given the amount of hysteria and demagoguery that has obtained during the weeks since President Bush advanced Judge Roberts’s name. But as the senators spoke, we rapidly began to feel a different sense, one of profound admiration for the sagacity of the Founders of America. These hearings could yet, we suppose, run off the rails. But somehow we found the way they began decidedly encouraging.

For one thing, we don’t mind saying, we enjoyed the remarks of Senator Schumer, who declared victory in his long, and sometimes lonely, quest to make ideology fair game for Senate inquiry. He shrewdly pointed out that Judge Roberts was the youngest nominee to the high court’s top seat in 204 years, and he voiced the opinion that Judge Roberts has the “potential to wield more influence over the lives of the citizens of this country than any jurist in history.” Mr. Schumer said it was fundamental to the Senate’s responsibility “to ascertain your legal philosophy and judicial ideology.” He said the pivotal question in his vote would be whether Judge Roberts was “within the mainstream – albeit the conservative mainstream.”

“Let me be clear,” Mr. Schumer said, “I know you’re a conservative. I don’t expect your views to mirror mine. After all, President Bush won the election and everyone understands that he will nominate conservatives to the court. But while we certainly do not expect the court to move to the left under the president, it should not move radically to the right.” It was, in our view, the one point in the hearing where a senator blundered, placing himself athwart the voters who have expanded the majority in the Senate of the party that says it does want to move the court to the right and unambiguously elected the president who made that an issue in the recent campaign.

Judge Roberts didn’t take the bait, though the hearing is young. He began his part of the hearings with the modest approach he has taken from the start, that has so charmed so many who have watched him these past few weeks. He spoke of his view “that a certain humility should characterize the judicial role.” Justices, he asserted, “are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role.” And then he uttered what, if he is confirmed, will become the immortal line: “Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.”

So it strikes us that we are in for an inspiring week. The umpire is in the batter’s box, and some of the shrewdest senators ever to represent the sovereign states are pitching. We find ourselves not the least bit discouraged at the prospect that Mr. Schumer & Co. will be able to open up the substantive questions. Our guess is that the voters would be disappointed if the senators didn’t. The debate has been going on for decades now about whether a personality is suited for, on the one hand, the bench or, on the other hand, what the newspapers used to call the “legislative hall.” We have little doubt that Judge Roberts, who never practiced anything else than constitutional law, is suited to the former.

The art for Judge Roberts this week will be to give all he can on the question of substance without circumscribing his ability to decide with an open mind should he mount the high bench. And all the while to protect the prerogative of the man who put his name forward. President Bush has demonstrated nothing so much in his nominations to the federal courts so far – and in the toughness with which he has backed his most controversial nominees – than that he understands that the substance of what Mr. Schumer has been seeking the right to throw into sharp relief is one of the reasons that it is Mr. Bush and not Senator Kerry choosing the justice the Senate will confirm.