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So who is this guy Roberts? He has only two years of judicial experience, and his legal advocacy can be dismissed as doing the bidding of his bosses.

Fair enough. I'm willing to hear the guy out. We're not going to get a Ginsburg, but I'd be happy with an O'Connor-style moderate conservative. For all we know (and for all the religious-right knows), Roberts might be that sort of guy.

But he has to be honest and forthcoming, unlike his previous confirmation hearing. The Senate must take its time deliberating over the nomination. And this is something that all sides should want, not just ours. For all the right wing knows, this guy may be the next Souter who simply pretended to be virulently anti-privacy.

So sayeth kos over at DKos, hitting up the facts of this matter: that this nomination is both a distraction tactic from the Rove CIA leak's windfall this week, and an important nomination that could decide the Supreme Court's general predictability and reliablility for years to come. He points out what the MSM isn't interested in: that the Rove story will carry through the investigation; it may have cooled, and the MSM may drop it, but there will be more learned, and it will flare up again- and the left can keep stoking the flames and learn more about the nominee.

The National Review was quick to adopt Roberts to the bench, and the NYT looks at the political games Bush has been playing by, despite his wife's pillow talk of a female benchwarmer, nominating a Harvard educated, White, Rich, Washington Insider [who has worked under both Reagan and Bush 1, of course]:

As often is the case with Mr. Bush, the decision appears almost obvious in retrospect: a choice that is at least good enough for conservatives, who hailed the nomination with a barrage of favorable reaction that went out even before Mr. Bush appeared in the East Room on Tuesday evening, yet someone who is genial and enigmatic enough to confound Democrats as they head into what they had long expected to be a difficult battle.

By suggesting that Mr. Bush was giving serious consideration to a woman or minority even if he did not choose one in the end, the White House may have minimized any political backlash Mr. Bush may have suffered by choosing a man to replace the court's first woman.

"They've artfully threaded the needle," said a senior Democratic leadership aide, who declined to be identified as Democrats decided how strongly they wanted to resist the nomination.

Artfully threaded, indeed. It was a poignant tool The Administration possessed to deflect from the negative energy of the Rove scandal and the dwindling support of The Administration's work in Iraq. [More NYT here]

Anyway. Lots of concern about who this guy is and how do you face/oppose a relatively unknown candidate. Again, back to DKos for some guidance from Armando from Bruce Ackerman: you hold him up to the flame of Scalia- if he reflects Antonin's light, you cut him loose of his obligations to America. If he accepts some of the light and rejects some of it, he's worth a certain amount of consideration.