Remember the whirlwind of rumors over the past few days that had Edith Clement as a lock to take Sandra O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court? Well, never mind all that — Dubya instead nominated John G. Roberts, a DC Circuit Court judge, to join the Supremes. Mere seconds after we got word of the name of the nominee, we thought we heard a distant cry: "Let the spin begin!"

Over the next days, weeks, and months, every interest group with an advertising budget will be shouting out epithets, insults, praises, and catch-phrases in an attempt to tell us everything that they think we need to know about this guy. Our advice: do your own homework.

For our part, we don't have anything substantial to say about the man, at least not quite yet. We've started doing some reading — Roberts' biography on FindLaw, searchable opinions from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, the 2003 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing notes in which Roberts was confirmed to his current position, a NARAL Prochoice America letter from 2003 opposing Roberts for the DC Circuit as well as their new opposition published today.

We've heard that Roberts is against abortion, but that may not be entirely true. Yes, as Deputy Solicitor General during the Reagan and Bush Senior years, Roberts argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that "[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled...". However, as Ed Brayton correctly points out over on Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Roberts was acting in his capacity as a representative of the President at the time. What does this tell us about his stance on abortion? Not a lot, except that we have more homework to do.

We've also heard that Roberts has a habit of pissing on civil liberties in general. The ACLU has "expressed deep concern" over his record on certain civil liberties, and from Majikthise, we caught wind of a Roberts decision in which he upheld the Constitutionality of arresting a twelve year old girl for eating a french fry in a Metrorail station. This is all disturbing information, of course, but it raises questions that will require much more research. If there's one thing we've learned, it is that there is always far more to a story than the talking points splashed all over the media.

Off the cuff, we'd say that this is an interesting choice. Roberts doesn't appear to be cut from the Christian Fundy cloth, but his reputation as someone who is against abortion may appease the religious right, even if that "pro-life" reputation may not be as firmly grounded as the far right (or the far left) would have us believe. He seems to be respected in the legal community, and it appears that he is at least worthy of a fair confirmation hearing (as opposed to some of the loons that the Religious Right batted around as potential nominees).

If nothing else, this should prove to be an interesting ride.