[Supreme Court]

Alito Reactions (MSM Edition)

Reading a strongly-worded condemnation in the local paper about the Alito nomination got me wondering--did everyone think it was a bad call? Well, not the WaPo, of course. They're cautiously weighing the evidence. (The WaPo is the Tom Daschle of the major US newspapers.)

Oregonian
It also puts Alito squarely to the right of Sandra Day O'Connor, the retiring justice he would replace. Alito may overcome these problems during confirmation hearings and win over moderate senators. However, President Bush has guaranteed a bitter and divisive fight in the Senate by nominating someone so plainly ready to roll back abortion rights and chip away at other key issues of privacy and precedent.

Washington Post
One thing that is clear from a cursory review of Judge Alito's work is that he is not a bomb-thrower but rather a judge who is careful -- even in dissent -- to be respectful of his colleagues' work. His opinions probably don't contain the sort of flamboyant statements that can become defining sound bites in a bruising confirmation battle. Evaluating Judge Alito will necessarily be a more subtle project than assessing some of the judges President Bush has nominated to lower courts.

NY Times
When a judge is more radical on states' power than Justice Rehnquist, the spiritual leader of the modern states' rights movement, we should pay attention.

LA Times
Alito, who is a judge on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, is everything that Miers is not: qualified, experienced and male. By nominating him so quickly, Bush has answered the question of whether he would respond to the Miers fiasco by reaching out to moderates or repairing ties to his base. Apparently Bush thinks it is more important to appease extremists in his own party than to appeal to the broad spectrum of Americans.

Boston Globe
N FEDERAL Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito, President Bush has a Supreme Court nomination that can unite restive conservatives even as it threatens to divide the rest of the country. Yesterday Alito was being described as ''a grand slam" for conservatives, not least because of his dissenting opinion in the 1991 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey -- the last time the Supreme Court affirmed the essential core of abortion rights under Roe. v Wade. The choice seems designed to provoke a confrontation with Democrats and moderates while galvanizing Bush's political base.... fter alienating conservatives, Bush has reached for someone who is just right for them, but may be too right for the nation.

Of course, there were the outliers. Straight from the RNC come these two bold opinions--which parrot back in almost identical language the same talking points I heard all day on NPR yesterday:

Washington Times
This is the moment conservatives have been waiting for: a first-rate jurist with an exemplary record.... The president has nominated an exceptionally qualified and experienced judge. Sam Alito is a clear, conservative choice who deserves the up-or-down vote to which court nominees are entitled.

Wall Street Journal
With yesterday's nomination of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, President Bush reached into his John Roberts playbook to name a judicial conservative with impeccable credentials....

Finally, a word about Mr. Bush: He deserves credit for quickly putting the Miers defeat behind him and returning to his campaign promise to nominate conservatives even at the risk of a political fight. If liberal Democrats want a battle over judicial philosophy, so be it. This is a rumble worth having.