UPDATE: What a typical example of twisting the facts of a case to fit an agenda provided by Planetary Gear below. Alito gave power-hungry piggies carte blanche to strip search 10 year old girls. Perfect. Be sure to listen to people like him, with such total disregard for factual information in favor of emotional images when making up your mind. Alito will serve with dignity and and intellectual competence on the Supreme Court, as befits someone of his stunningly acute mind and judicial background, and will decide cases based upon the facts and constitutional law, as most Justices from both parties have over the years. (Power-hungry piggies. Chuckle.) ORIGINAL COMMENT 10/31/05: Bush, with not a moment to spare, re-ingratiates himself to his base, who will forgive and forget the tomfoolery surrounding Harriett Miers, and will fight for this excellent judge's approval. He'll be characterized as a right-wing extremist by (surprise, surprise) LEFT-wing extremists. They can pull the filibuster on this one, they'll get nuked. The base wants this guy and they're gonna get it. The more resistance put up by democrats on the Judiciary Committee, the more rapidly Bush gets re-matriculated into the role of "party leader" helping the country to forget about Harriett, Scooter and the toughest week of the Bush presidency, since the week of 9/11/01.

Another for the GOP/Fascist regime. Checks and balances? What are those? I'm ready to move to Europe.

if society in the book 1984 sounds good to you, perhaps alito is your man.

The part about the hearing I liked was when Ted Kennedy questioned his integrity. That was a laugher. Judge Alito will interpret the Constitution as it was written, not as the "living document" liberals fantasize about in order to circumvent the will of the majority and get their agenda "passed" into "law." If the Founding Fathers could see what the Court's done in the last fifty years, they'd barf down Chuck Schumer's neck.

Judge Alito proved to be every bit the formidable nominee conservatives were screaming for. (I'll pretend that Harriet Miers thing ever happened Dub) His performance during the hearings- though not as slick as John Roberts- was brilliant in his own right. He's obviously got a strong command of case history- particularly cases he's ruled on. He circumnavigated the abortion issue quite successfully and was not eager to go as far as Roberts in calling Roe "settled" law. He was quite candid on the issue of a unitary executive and also was unwilling to back away from this theory in principle. My opinons is Alito will turn out to be a strong textualist in the Scalia mold. He didn't exhibit the juridical approach of an originalist like Thomas but it was quite clear he had much less respect for eroded precedent than say Roberts. This guy is going to be a great jurist for years to come!

I have no clue who he is but he just got nominated and he has to be better than the President's last choice.

Radical right conservative. Seems to me to be arrogant. Don't trust him.

Just from what I've read about him, he seems like a real jerk. Just what we need on the Court...Scalia Jr.

While I admit that I got this one wrong I am really confused. . .president gump first said that Miers was a great candidate because of her lack of judicial experience. . .now he says Alito will be a great candidate due to his great judicial experience. Had Alito been the first and only nomination, this choice would be a respectable one. Since Alito is the silver medal choice, one can only hold this president in contempt and ask him about the whatever-the-voices-I-hear decision-making-process. Flip-flopping indeed. . .Bush makes everything up as he goes along- more evidence of a failed foreign and domestic policy. Oh, still waiting for his magic formula on social security and making sure to add the constitutional amendment protecting us terrified straight people from gays. . . Alito might make a fine judge, but pardon me for not trusting a president who wouldn't know the truth about the color of snow let alone concepts of justice, geopolitical politics, or pronounciation of words with more than four syllables. . .

A Conservative won the White house, so he has the right to nominate this well qualified Conservative to the "high" bench.

Alito is immensely qualified, but his record will cause quite a bit of controversy, especially on the abortion issue. Look for this confirmation battle to be a bit more bruising than the Roberts nomination.

In all honesty, is it truly that unreasonable for a conservative president to appoint a...conservative? President Bush's supporters did not ask for a conservative who had no judicial experince; if they did, then Harriet Miers would still be the nominee. The reality is the president simply applied the logic Bill Clinton used when he nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Both Judge Alito and Justice Ginsburg have graduated from distinguished law schools. Both were accomplished jurists with a list of extensive law experince. Both have been held in high esteem by their colleagues. Those so eager to fight this nomination seem to be the same ones who have opposed almost every single action by the Bush Adminstration. That's hardly a coincidence.

Today President Bush selected Appelate Court Judge Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. In doing so, Bush decided that he should apply different criteria to the selection process. Here he picked someone with a strong record in the judiciary. He has been arguing cases before the court for over 23 years, later he went on to be a US Attorney where he vigorously prosecuted white collar criminals and upheld major civil rights statutes. He has been practicing on the Appeals Court out of Philadelphia for about 15 years now, where he has gained a reputation as a lone dissenter in an otherwise "liberal" court. This is in contrast to the Miers pick, where he was going for someone outside the judiciary and the scholarly community. In Alito, you have someone with solid credentials. This is a nomination that will probably elicit more opposition than Judge Roberts did primarily because his record is conservative on issues like abortion, where he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law in 1991 that forces a woman to get permission from her husband before getting an abortion. That law was one of the main subjects of a seminal case back in 1992 heard before the Supreme Court which that Pennsylvania law was overturned, with Sandra Day O'Connor writing the majority opinion. Watch for his views on this count to be scrutinized. In my view, Bush made another good pick here. This will probably go a long way in rehabilitating his reputation with conservatives. Senate Democrats will mount opposition to him, but since this candidate is well-qualified, I doubt they will use their political capital to mount a filibuster against him. In many respects, he is a mainstream conservative. He has a good record on civil rights both as a public attorney and as a judge in particular, but the abortion issue will cause some friction, especially since Sandra Day O'Connor was a pivotal vote in that area of law. He's also known for giving wide latitude to free speech rights. Overall, I would say that of all the candidates Bush was considering, that this was the best one.

Among those who know him best as a judge -- the lawyers who come before him in 3rd Circuit cases-- Judge Sam Alito is widely regarded as a favorite: a fairminded and brilliant judge. This strong consensus is held among liberals and conservatives alike. The respect he enjoys is attributable to his careful attention to all sides of issues that come before him. His firm commitment to constitutional liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom of worship (no matter whose ox is being gored) is well known. Few, if any, members of the legal community can match his academic credentials or his legal experience, either on or off the bench. Though always recognized as conservative in his judicial philosophy, his careful, openminded manner is the very opposite of a reckless ideologue who would ignore either constitutional meaning or established precedent. He is clearly the most qualified of anyone on the supposed "short list" of possible Supreme Court nominees named in the press.

A great judge of Italian heritage

why?

Extreme Right-Winger who makes Scalia and Thomas look like lefties.

I'll bet all these idiots bad-mouthing him have no clue who he is.

A horrific choice to sit upon our highest court. Alito's views DO NOT represent the majority of Americans. Let's just spin the wheel of time and go back 70 years

I'm rating him in the context of a choice for SCOTUS. He's an ideologue, unfortunately, and while he may be brilliant, kind, respectable and well thought of even outside his party, he is also unfortunately a hard-core judicial activist - something his own party often has a hard time with (well, at least they do when the activism is not ultra-right).

Yes he is conservative but also is one to render fair decisions that are just.

Great at seeing both sides of an issue. Not the type of judge that can or will be pidgeon-holed and is certainly not predictable. A fair and open minded person.

Add another to the list of divisive, Bible-beating white men that Bush surrounds himself with. Every day bring us all closer to a theocracy.

A conservative - yes . But a fair one who can see both or all sides of a problem

I've heard that Judge Alito has been dubbed Scalito because his writings remind readers of Justice Scalia. If that's the case, nominate him now!