Robert's rules for 40 years?

With it all but assured that John Roberts will be confirmed as Supreme Court Chief Justice, what are we in for?

How do those of you who have read about or witnessed his confirmation hearings and other reports feel Roberts will perform as the chief and ultimate justice of the land? Will he prove to share the radically right views of Scallia and Thomas? Will he surprise us and actually be as open-minded and respectful of precedent as he assured the congress?

Doesn't it seem as though the confimation process is pretty short and inadequate when you consider that we're about to install a person as chief justice of the supreme court for as 40 years or longer? The person which will literally affect every one of our lives and the lives of our children, and the White House won't release most of his records, they hold a few hours of mostly meaningless theatre as confirmation hearings, and then we end up with a guy we know next to nothing about dictating how the consitution is interpreted for decades to come.

The Dems were effectively neutralized and put in a box, as if they all voted against Roberts, the White House would no doubt abandon any effort to choose a candidate at least slightly palletable to Dems for the other vacancy on the court. In other words, if they felt that Dems would all vote against anyone Bush puts forth anyway, they'd just send up one of their crack-pot radical rightists and get him confirmed anyway.

It's truly rather disturbing to realize that the Democrats really don't have any say in the matter anyway.

Will Roberts overrule Roe v. Wade? Will he continue to rule for corporations over individuals? Will he continue to rule against civil rights?

What do you think?