Yes, the same Doug Kmiec who has endorsed Barack Obama for President went on the talk-show, op-ed circuit in October 2005 to support President Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Harriet Miers. This is what Professor Kmiec wrote in a 2005 Washington Post piece:

[T]hose asked to interpret the law fashioned by legislative assembly are expected to be objective, impartial and circumspect in deciding issues no more broadly than the legal dispute needing resolution. Jurists are to be fair and, while learning and practice in the law are expected, no justice is invited to propound a personal philosophy on the great issues of the universe: abortion, affirmative action, assisted suicide, religion in public life.

But, it is claimed, [Harriet Meirs] is so unlike John Roberts. In fact, though, Miers is exactly like Roberts in one crucial aspect: They are both steadfast adherents to a judicial ethic of no personally imposed points of view. The cognoscenti snicker when the president reaffirms his criterion of judges who will shun legislating from the bench, since to legal realists, it is inconceivable and to political ideologues it is a missed opportunity. They all do, they all will, goes the refrain. To which Roberts repeatedly answered: No, not this umpire. The same answer can be expected from Miers as she makes her bid to join the officiating crew.

And this is what Senator Obama has said about Justice Roberts prior to his confirmation

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind Judge Roberts is qualified to sit on the highest court in the land. Moreover, he seems to have the comportment and the temperament that makes for a good judge. He is humble, he is personally decent, and he appears to be respectful of different points of view. It is absolutely clear to me that Judge Roberts truly loves the law. He couldn’t have achieved his excellent record as an advocate before the Supreme Court without that passion for the law, and it became apparent to me in our conversation that he does, in fact, deeply respect the basic precepts that go into deciding 95 percent of the cases that come before the Federal court — adherence to precedence, a certain modesty in reading statutes and constitutional text, a respect for procedural regularity, and an impartiality in presiding over the adversarial system. All of these characteristics make me want to vote for Judge Roberts.

The problem I face — a problem that has been voiced by some of my other colleagues, both those who are voting for Mr. Roberts and those who are voting against Mr. Roberts — is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95 percent of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95 percent of the cases — what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.

In those 5 percent of hard cases, the constitutional text will not be directly on point. The language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. Legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. In those circumstances, your decisions about whether affirmative action is an appropriate response to the history of discrimination in this country or whether a general right of privacy encompasses a more specific right of women to control their reproductive decisions or whether the commerce clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce, whether a person who is disabled has the right to be accommodated so they can work alongside those who are nondisabled — in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart….

The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts’ nomination.

In 2005, Professor Kmiec, in his defense of the Miers nomination, offered up Justice Roberts as the ideal Supreme Court justice because he does not believe the Constitution is supposed to “resolve” controversial moral and social issues in a way consistent with the views of people like Senator Obama (or even Doug Kmiec circa 2005). In 2005, Senator Obama told us that he was not voting for Judge John Roberts precisely because Roberts does not believe that the Constitution is supposed to resolve controversial moral and social issues in a way consistent with Senator Obama’s own views on these matters. In 2008, Professor Kmiec is supporting Obama.

[cross-posted on What's Wrong With the World]