Do the liberal media have a man-crush on John Roberts?

Howard Kurtz thinks so:

The New York Times offered this front-page valentine:

“To be sure, the chief justice considers himself the custodian of the Supreme Court’s prestige, authority and legitimacy, and he is often its voice in major cases…But almost no one thought that he would provide the fifth vote, joining only the liberals, to uphold a Democratic president’s signal legislative achievement.”

Politico has him casting a giant shadow:

“This was Roberts’s moment to leave his imprint on the court, and he seized that moment. His action did not simply cross ideological lines: Roberts appointed himself the architect of the majority opinion holding that the landmark health care law could be justified as an exercise of Congress’s power to tax.

“His ruling left liberal legal scholars and Obama supporters downright giddy.”

And New Republic legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen portrays him as a giant among men:

“For bringing the court back from the partisan abyss, Roberts deserves praise not only from liberals but from all Americans who believe that it’s important for the court to stand for something larger than politics. On Thursday, Roberts did precisely what he said he would do when he first took office: He placed the bipartisan legitimacy of the court above his own ideological agenda…Roberts’ decision was above all an act of judicial statesmanship.”

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