Well, George W. Bush selected his Supreme Court nominee: D.C. Circuit Court Judge John Roberts. Thus far, he doesn't sound like a winner.

Roberts spent most of his career as a private-practice lawyer, working for the firm Hogan & Hartson from 1986 to 1989 and again from 1993 to 2003, when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to working for Hogan & Hartson, he clerked for Second Circuit Court Judge Henry Friendly and then-Supreme Court (Associate) Justice William Rehnquist. In 1981, he joined the Justice Department, but left in 1986 to work for Hogan & Hartson. He returned to the Justice Department in 1987, then left again in 1993. His only experience as a judge has been the two years he has served on the D.C. Circuit Court. And he's only 50!

50?! Is that young for a Supreme Court Justice? They're all old fogies now! Here's how old the current Justices (plus O'Connor) were when they were appointed:

• Rehnquist: 48 (appt. 1972)
• Stevens: 55 (appt. 1975)
• O'Connor: 51 (appt. 1981)
• Scalia: 50 (appt. 1986)
• Kennedy: 52 (appt. 1988)
• Souter: 51 (appt. 1990)
• Thomas: 43 (appt. 1991)
• Ginsburg: 60 (appt. 1993)
• Breyer: 56 (appt. 1994)

The mean (average) age for the current justices is 51.8 years, and the median age is 51. This means that, statistically, the mean for their ages is skewed to being a year older than they should be (in a perfect world, the mean and the median would match, and when they don't -- as in the case of income in the United States -- it tells us interesting things), but 51-52 is the average age, so 50 is nothing special. He wouldn't come close to Clarence Thomas' 43 or Ginsburg's 60. He's nicely in between. The reason we think of Supreme Court justices as old fogeys is because now, twenty and thirty years after most of them were appointed, they are. But back when they were appointed, they were spry, middle-aged men and women.

So how about this Roberts guy? Well, he doesn't like Roe v. Wade, for one thing. This is what he said in a government brief in the case Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991), which dealt with prohibiting federally-funded family planning clinics from discussing abortion as an option:

We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled . . . [T]he Court’s conclusion[] in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion . . . find[s] no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.

He also has no problem with a little bit of prayer in schools. In Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), Roberts co-authored an amicus brief saying that a prayer at a public school graduation was constitutionally permissible. The Court disagreed. Interestingly, the government wasn't even involved in the case, but decided to file an amicus brief, anyway.

In 1990, he co-authored the government's brief in United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), in which the constitutionality of the Flag Protection Act of 1989 -- which prohibited flag burning -- was challenged. The Court struck down the law. Even Justice Scalia wrote, "Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.”

You can read more in People for the American Way's report on Roberts. His sketchy record on First Amendment issues, as well as his inexperience as a judge, all conspire to make him a not-so-good choice to be a Supreme Court justice. Gonzales would probably have been better.