Interesting questions for Judge Roberts

Senator Specter seems a little worried about John Roberts. Or maybe he's just starting to figure out what the ramifications of his opinions could be. Specter is worried that Roberts might vote to narrow the reach of the Commerce Clause to authorize Congressional impositions on the states, like the ADA.

Specter has struck the posture of a legal scholar, probing out of intellectual curiosity -- but in fact, he seems to have drifted into the role of Wile E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons: In the course of his letter he was laying traps that would close at the wrong moment, and bombs that would explode on himself.

Drawing on Scalia, Specter complained that the Court -- in assembling a large collection of facts to explain and justify the Americans with Disabilities Act -- had arrogated to itself the role of checking Congress's homework. Should Congress not be given a certain deference, he asked, in finding and asserting the facts that establish the ground of its legislation?