Given the revelations that are coming out about Roberts from these documents, it does beg the question as to whether the White House is sincere in its efforts to reach out to minorities and other groups.

Petitio statements and rhetorical questions can become weary when you have fully accepted someone for who they are.

[At the same time, there is a growing pile of tidbits, in Roberts' opinions and in the Reagan-era documents dribbling out of the White House, that indicates he has strongly held and far-right views on major fronts—abortion, religion, and executive power. There's ammunition for principled opposition to be mined here. But the key attribute Roberts lacks from the point of view of the legal liberals, at least on the record, is an overarching, burn-the-house-down judicial philosophy. As a result, proponents of judicial restraint—an approach to the law that's become as fashionable among liberals as conservatives—are eager to embrace him as one of their own. Leftish advocates of restraint celebrate justices who don't reach out beyond the facts of a case to decide more than they need to and who respect existing Supreme Court precedent. They wrinkle their noses at justices who overtly seek to impose a rightward agenda (Antonin Scalia) and are willing to jettison past decisions to do it (Clarence Thomas). Roberts has never declared himself one of the bad guys, Sunstein pointed out hopefully in a recent piece in the New Republic . Instead he has styled himself as deliberate, lawyerly, process-oriented. His opinions on the D.C. Circuit court of appeals] avoid broad pronouncements, ... They do not try to reorient the law.

'What am I missing?' is a much more important question than 'How cool am I?'

As I reviewed the number of documents about John Roberts’ record, it is imperative that there is intensive oversight during the hearings, ... The Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment. We cannot afford to lose ground on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the affirmative action executive order in the Nixon White House, and the rights to fairness in the criminal justice system.

Behind the GOP's bravado, there are a lot GOP operatives quaking in their boots.