As the days progress, I’ll be posting stuff about Judge John Roberts.

In a nutshell, here’s the little bit I think I might know about Roberts as I write this today: Roberts was a Republican political activist, and used his lawyer skills to help Bush in the 2000 recount battles. A couple of years ago, Bush appointed Roberts to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Roberts had no judicial experience.

Among lawyers, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is seen as the most powerful Appeals Court below the Supreme Court.

And now Bush elevates Roberts to the Supreme Court, after only two years, before Roberts can build a track record of judicial decision making.

The absence of a track record leave little for critics to analyze.

Roberts earlier role as a Republlican Campaign lawyer can’t really be used against him in confirmation hearings, because Roberts can easily deflect questions by saying he was just making paid legal arguments on behalf of clients, like any lawyer.

AND WHY NOW????

Why did Bush move NOW to nominate someone for the Supreme Court when he had talked about spending more time considering things. Broad specualtion is that the nomination deflects attention from the Rove-Plame-Novak scandal.

Here are a couple of Robert-related links to satisfy some of your curiosity:

• News article from CNN intenational edition
• Respectful and thoughtful discussion of Roberts over at TalkingPointsMemo Cafe
• a short Roberts piece with internal links to much more, from DailyKos
• A longer opinion piece about Roberts with internal links to much more, from DailyKos

I’ll be watching this story. I’ll try to bring more meaning than the polarizing opinions we’ll be seeing from each side of the debate.

In my experience, judges take their jobs very seriously. Despite their prior history as political activists, once elevated to the bench they become true judges and attempt to do justice under the law.