Samuel Alito! Alito besides having a cool sounding name is apparently very solidly conservative and is strict constitutionalist. A good bio of him is here from USNews.com.
This is an absolutely brilliant pick in the vein of John Roberts. Unlike Harriet Miers, who I'm sure was a nice person, Alito has a 15 year paper trail of opinions to varify his judicial philosophy. He was also confirmed by the senate twice by 100-0 margins. And he has a great deal of respect from both sides of the aisle.
In the event that a conservative is nominated the democratic playbook calls for demonization and accusations of "extremeist" and "out of the mainstream" and thereby look justified in inovoking a fillbuster or forcing the nominee to withdraw. The problem is that in this case those accusations are not true. Not that that has ever stopped them before. However this time they are blatantly not true, Alito's judicial credentials are impeccable, smearing him will only hurt the democrats. But this will not stop them, they are too beholden to the winguts in their party. The NARAL's and the moveon.org's and all the yapping Michael Moore followers are all worried about Roe v. Wade being overturned. Roe is like the virgin Mary of the leftist religion and since they are a true minority having failed at the ballot box the Supreme Court is extremely important to them. It will be wonderful to watch the Democratic party meltdown over this issue. Because any Democrat that tries to engage in anything like a discussion of issues or a debate of the facts is immediately shouted down by the wingnuts. Why? Because doing this actually gives credence to the idea the conservatism might be a viable worldview. And we can't have that.
And the immolation has already begun. So far he has been derided for being caltholic and not a woman. He has also been accused of being a mafioso. He has even been indirectly called a racist. The other line of attack being taken by Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi is the "the President had a chance to be a uniter not a divider by nominating someone in the mold of O'Connor, instead he has caved to the far right wing". This will get a lot of play because it sounds good in print and because of the Harriet Miers situation. But ultimately this will not fly, there are too many Democrats who realize that Alito is not an extremist and will support him. He's just too qualified to make this fly. And this is just hyperbole anyway, all the Democrats knew that there was no chance of Bush nominating someone like O'Connor.
The other issue we have to worry about is the Gang of 14 who might fillibuster and then prevent the Byrd option from being used. However things look great on that front, the Senators who signed that document seem ready to fight for this nominee and rebuke any silly notions that this is an "extreme circumstance". In fact they are all set to "crush Democratic opposition" should a filibuster arise. It's so nice to see them finally growing a back bone. However contacting your senators would not be a bad idea. Remember a phone call or fax is worth 10 emails.
Something you will hear a lot about in the coming weeks is the Planned Parenthood v. Casey abortion ruling. Patterico has the rundown on that case.
My prediction: Confirmed by Christmas by at least 65 votes. I wouldn't mind a filibuster and showdown on the senate floor but it's not going to happen with this nominee. And this will be a wonderful thing. The common theme throughout Alito's ruling is strict adherence to established precedence. He balances this with intelligent conservatism in a brilliant way. Why is this important? When is is confirmed to the Supreme Court the only established precedent that he will have to go by is the Constitution of the United States of America. 'Nuff said.
