Alito, Take One

Our take on Alito in the News-Journal this morning:

"By nominating Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate, President Bush is asking for a fight. He should get it. Alito is an activist whose judicial philosophy scorns modern jurisprudence in deference to pre-New Deal interpretations of the Constitution. He's no conservative, if by conservative one implies, as John Roberts implied in his recent confirmation hearings, judicial restraint and respect for precedent. Alito is a judicial fundamentalist who sees virtually no role for the federal government in regulating civil rights, privacy, the workplace or the environment -- regulations foreign to the framers of the Constitution. His opinions advocate for a regression to such a 19th century interpretation of the Constitution. That makes him a radical, not a conservative. His philosophy places him to the right of Antonin Scalia, where the only thing left is the apostolic legalism of Clarence Thomas. Nothing in the last five years, and even less in the last five months, has earned Bush a mandate to so extremely shove the court rightward." [Read more...]