And Bush's lead attorney in the recount battle was a well-connected young Republican lawyer named John Roberts.

Within only five years of the Brooks Brothers Riot, and with less than two years of experience on the bench as a judge, he was made CHIEF Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

O'Connor was retiring anyway, and Rehnquist was already sick, but these days I often wonder if Rehnquist wasn't given a tiny push in the same quiet way George V had been sixty years earlier, because goddamn was that some convenient timing.

From mere attorney to Chief Justice of SCOTUS in only five years. Imagine that. "Rewarded" indeed.