Alito
Today's nomination unleashed a host of predictable reactions from the usual suspects in the form of the ever-powerful, mass e-mailed press release. Reaction from the blogosphere offered similarly expected predictions of partisan armageddon.
The Moderate Voice sees a not-so-moderate reaction from Democrats:
Bush has now fulfilled an oft-stated promise to conservatives and other Americans who voted for him for a direction-change in the court.Kevin Drum predicts partisan warfare:But Alito's nomination is certain to spark a vigorous battle from Democrats since his solid conservative credentials mean the days of the O'Connor swing vote on the court are now over.
No stealth candidate this time.So does Chris Bowers:The movement conservatives wanted a war, and this time they've probably gotten one. I guess Bush was itching for revenge after Scooter Libby got indicted.
Reid and Kennedy have already come out hard in opposition. This is going to be a fight--a big one. Conservatives got their wish.It looks like Michelle Malkin got hers:
Experienced. Well-thought-of by conservative constitutional scholars. Not a diversity/crony pick. Young. This is a nominee the Right can get behind.And if "borking" was the coined verb for confirmation hearings of yesteryear, let the "filiborking" begin today, says Stanley Kurtz at The Corner:
Now for the battle on the left. I'm not sure how openly it will play out, but the conflict will be between those who want a high profile filibuster/borking and those who don't. The filiborkers will hope either to block the nomination or, more realistically, to use the battle to label Republicans as "out of the mainstream" reactionaries. Recognizing that the country is more conservative than liberal, moderate Dems will know that filiborking this nomination can only result in labeling the Dems themselves as extremists in hoc to radical interest groups. So get ready for the debate. To filibork, or not to filibork. That is the question.Ever the even-handed critic, Andrew Sullivan has less extreme expectations:
He looks like a qualified candidate to me at first blush, and readers will know that my basic instinct on judicial nominees is to give the president, of whatever party, considerable lee-way in their selections. A filibuster, right now, looks way-too-extreme to me. But - even though I guess I may get my fair share of blogads in the process - the prospect of another polarizing culture war battle does not exactly encourage, does it?While The Left Coaster didn't pull any punches:
In nominating Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, however, George W. Bush just told women they don't matter.Instead of making comparisons to the president's first pick, Ann Althouse measures Alito against Chief Justice John Roberts – and finds Alito ahead:
I wanted President Bush to nominate someone like John Roberts, and I think Samuel Alito in fact deserves to be considered a stronger nominee than Roberts. He has the impressive educational background followed by a stellar career before becoming a judge, but he also has a much longer record as a judge -- 15 years to Roberts's 2. I am glad to see Bush not shy away from a person with a real judicial record. The fear of putting up a nominee with actual cases to peruse puts too many fine candidates off limits. To see Roberts as the ideal nominee is to prefer a judicial mystery, someone who is hard to know and hard to attack. With Alito, we can read his cases. It will be important to recognize that an inferior court judge is profoundly limited compared to a Supreme Court justice, but the judicial record is still highly valuable.