Everybody leads with—and most banner—President Bush's nomination of Judge John Roberts for the Supreme Court. Roberts, just 50, is something of a Republican establishment superstar. He's served in the administrations of Reagan and Bush I and two years ago was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, considered the country's second-highest court.

The Wall Street Journal describes the Harvard-trained Roberts as "affable, thoughtful and solidly Republican." But though he's been around Washington for two decades, it's hard to nail down his exact views since he's served on the bench for only two years. Before that, as an administration attorney he was obligated to take whatever positions the Oval Office handed down.

Some of the papers don't buy or consider that notion; USA Today's subhead, for example, screams that Roberts "argued Against Roe." But when asked about Roe v. Wade at his 2003 confirmation hearings, Roberts described it as the "settled law of the land." Of course, even that doesn't mean much; it could have just been a savvy statement of the obvious: As an appeals court judge he was bound by the Supreme Court's precedent.

As the WSJ puts it, Roberts' short time on the bench gives the White House a "strategic advantage." Democrats can be suspicious of Roberts, but he doesn't have a track record on which they can nail him.

The NYT's Adam's Nagourney describes the choice as "almost obvious in retrospect": Roberts "is at least good enough for conservatives ... yet genial and enigmatic enough to confound Democrats." "They've artfully threaded the needle," said one Democratic congressional aide.

In other words, as the LAT notes, Roberts is something of a quadruple threat: "a young, conservative judge with a spotless personal record and a minimal paper trail."

Roberts' decisions on the bench, says the Washington Post, have been marked by "dispassionate reasoning rather than inflammatory language." But as the New York Timesemphasizes, Roberts—a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society—has evinced skepticism about the extent of the feds' regulatory powers. In one recent case, Roberts ruled that feds can't use the Endangered Species Act to protect (endangered) arroyo toads since the case doesn't involve interstate commerce. "The toad," he wrote, "for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California."

Slate's Emily Bazelon flags another case Roberts ruled on just last week: He gave the OK to the military tribunals at Gitmo, even though most independent analysts have concluded that the tribunals don't meet minimum standards of justice. Roberts' ruling, writes Bazelon, should be "seriously troubling to anyone who values civil liberties."

Social conservatives seemed pleased with the pick, and as the Journal emphasizes, the nomination also "drew cheers" from the business community. In between serving in the Bush I administration and his recent appointment to the bench, Roberts was a top corporate lawyer. When he was nominated for appeals court two years ago, about 150 prominent lawyers, Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter supporting him.

Liberal groups quickly went into overdrive against Roberts. But as everybody notes, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid basically held his fire, describing Roberts as "someone with suitable legal traditional credentials" whose record should be checked out to see if it shows a "commitment to the core American values of freedom, equality, and fairness."