Roberts offers a sign that maybe he is reasonable and acceptable

[geek tragedy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/politics/10confirm.html?ex=1281326400&en=a40134bb7e82f6e6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

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The senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, said that Judge Roberts, while not addressing the Schiavo case specifically, made clear he was displeased with Congress's effort to force the federal judiciary to overturn a court order withdrawing her feeding tube.

"I asked whether it was constitutional for Congress to intervene in an end-of-life case with a specific remedy," Mr. Wyden said in a telephone interview after the hourlong meeting. "His answer was, 'I am concerned with judicial independence. Congress can prescribe standards, but when Congress starts to act like a court and prescribe particular remedies in particular cases, Congress has overstepped its bounds.' "
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Mr. Wyden said that he asked Judge Roberts whether he believed states should take the lead in regulating medical practice, and that the nominee replied that "uniformity across the country would stifle the genius of the founding fathers."

Mr. Wyden said, "I came away with the sense that he was somewhat sympathetic to my notion that there should be a wide berth for states to take the lead."

In discussing how the law was evolving on end-of-life care, Mr. Wyden said Judge Roberts cited a dissent by Justice Louis D. Brandeis in a 1928 Supreme Court case, in which he famously spoke of "the right to be left alone." Legal scholars view that dissent as a pithy formulation of the right to privacy - a principle that, years later and in a different context, formed the basis for the court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion.
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I still have no doubt that he'll vote to overturn or at the very least further weaken Roe v. Wade. However, this is the first time I've heard him say things with which I agree.