Cipher? Or are we just Google-eyed?

In at least one sense, the nomination of John Roberts is brilliant: it's impossible to Google him for quick reference. Here's a quick and dirty survey of the internet, including how highly ranked non-nominee John Roberts's are in the search results. I'm just sorry I didn't think to do this yesterday when the news first broke:

name	number of Google Hits	non-nominee results in top ten hits
"John Roberts"	about 380,000	eight, including a folk singer, a saint, a car dealership, a beauty salon, a Quaker, and a printing company
"John G. Roberts"	about 16,800	none. I sure hope he used his middle initial most of the time
"John Glover Roberts"	10	several, most of them involve an actor named "John Glover"
John Glover Roberts (no quotation marks)	about 794,000	all, including several other "John Glover" results: the serial killer, the actor, and the artist.

If you want to know how the "Jr." affects the results, do it yourself. For now I'll just note that both right and left think his lack of a real judicial record is a problem. I'd discount his work as an administration lawyer or in private practice, except for noting the people with whom he chose to associate himself. On those grounds, I'd say that he's worth opposing, but unless something really damning comes out, he's not worth making ourselves fools over (though Billmon thinks we can make the Republicans look like fools with relatively little difficulty. It's tempting). There are other arenas and other issues and other branches of government worth the fight. But that's my first take: I reserve the right to get in a froth as I learn more...