UPDATE: July 20, 3:24 p.m.
Woops. In The Agora corrects itself on the Hamdi case posted below so when you get to it…disregard.
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Original Post
First, his bio and the basic 411:

Born 1955 in Buffalo, NY

Federal Judicial Service:
U. S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit
Nominated by George W. Bush on January 7, 2003, to a seat vacated by James L. Buckley; Confirmed by the Senate on May 8, 2003, and received commission on June 2, 2003.

Education:
Harvard College, A.B., 1976

Harvard Law School, J.D., 1979

Professional Career:
Law clerk, Hon. Henry Friendly, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1979-1980
Law clerk, Associate Justice William Rehnquist, Supreme Court of the United States, 1980-1981
Special assistant to the attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice, 1981-1982
Associate counsel to the president, White House Counsel’s Office, 1982-1986
Private practice, Washington, DC, 1986-1989, 1993-2003
Principal deputy solicitor general, U.S. Department of Justice, 1989-1993

Next, a look around the blogosphere.

In The Agora on the nomination. Some notes:

Pro-choice groups will undoubtely be focusing on briefs written by Roberts when he worked in the DOJ in two abortion cases where he took a hard line against Roe v Wade during the Reagan and first Bush administrations, but that doesn’t really indicate anything. As a deputy solicitor general, his job was to represent the position of the President, not give his own independent analysis.

I think that’s an important note to make, however, it doesn’t mean he won’t still rule against abortion rights and that’s important for groups like Planned Parenthood who just released a statement of their own.

And In The Agora also has a concern:

MSNBC…had legal scholars on - Jonathan Turley and Lawrence Tribe. Tribe was quite conciliatory toward Roberts, calling him brilliant, decent and a man of integrity. He did, however, bring up the one decision that really concerns me, which was Roberts’ opinion in the Hamdi case where he argued for giving the President virtually unchecked authority in terms of treating American citizens as prisoners of war. That’s the one thing I’ve read from Roberts that really raises a red flag for me, but I haven’t read the full decision.

Following that, here are two Donklephant posts that you may not have checked out yet about the new nominee for SCOTUS:

• Comparing SCOTUS Nominees.
• Judge John Roberts Taking The Lead?

And here’s what the Dems are saying (via Howard Dean):

“It is disappointing that when President Bush had the chance to bring the country together, he instead turned to a nominee who may have impressive legal credentials, but also has sharp partisan credentials that cannot be ignored.”

Game on.

And one last Wall Street Journal article about the nomination and the recent history surrounding SCOTUS nominations.

Partisan tensions over judicial choices have risen substantially since the last court appointee in 1994. But even before then, Supreme Court fights have marked a series of recent presidencies. Since Richard Nixon assumed the presidency in 1969, four court choices have sparked pitched battles on the Senate floor. Three — Clement Haynesworth, G. Harrold Carswell and Robert Bork — have ended in defeat for the White House, while Clarence Thomas became a victory for the current president’s father. But all four had important consequences that no one had anticipated.

A lot more rides on the decision than the political balance on the highest bench in the land. Nomination battles can bleed over into an administration’s agenda, and appointments that initially appear unobjectionable can resonate months or years later. Even nominations that aren’t controversial can sometimes have a deep effect on a president’s legacy.

And now I’ll take a deep breath and wait for tomorrow.