President Bush threw his base a curveball in nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Today, he threw some high heat at his opponents by nominating Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

How exactly is the Miers nomination going to effect the process of getting Alito confirmed? I am curious to see if the Miers fiasco can be turned into just a blip or speedbump or if it will actually give the msm and Dems enough fuel to use to bulldoze this good nomination.

I doubt the Miers nomination will play any role at all. Alito's as qualified as Roberts, if not more so. Barring something unforseen (say, a subscription to Playgirl), all that is needed is 50 Republican votes: 50 to pass, 50 to nuke.

My only concern so far is this: In 2000 Alito ruled (as a member of a three-judge panel) that a New Jersey law banning partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional. From what I can tell, he based his decision on the fact that the Supreme Court requires a condition for the "health" of the mother, and the state law did not provide such a condition.

Raplh, I don't see what you find troubling. If the state law didn't meet the condition then what was he supposed to do?

He'd get more flack for a subscription to Playboy than Playgirl.

Well, he could have ruled in accordance with the Constitution.

Right. In terms of legal positivism (ala Scalia, but I don't agree with it) his ruling in that case is probably correct given the role of the appelate judge in our legal system. Drudge links to a Time Mag article which details a case in which Alito took a decidedly non-positivist stance which actually put him at odds with Scalia. That is also a very interesting case to look at to examine what sort of justice he might turn out to be. This is the link:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1124387,00.html

Tentatively, I think that Alito should be a good SC justice since he seems to actually rspect the modest but vital role given to the court and to actually believe that the Constitution "constitutes" something.

That is huge. I deal with liberals pretty much all of the time and it is amazing how entrenched their disregard for the rule of law is. There seems to be almost universal belief on the political left that the Constitution is null and void and completely inconsequential as regards political rule. It is funny to then hear someone like Alito or Scalia described as an "extremist" when liberals are tyrannical and fascist by their dismissal of the rule of law (which makes civil society possible) and their substitution of power politics for our original limited republican form of government. I seriously am not at all trying to be bombastic or hyperbolic here, liberal respect for the rule of law is close to non-existent.

Alito was already confirmed to the Appeals Court by the Democrats but that was back under G.H.W. Bush. So I suppose the Dems will say that in the 15 years he has been on the bench that Alito has shown himself to be a radical and extremist. I am not sure that will fly but we have to see if the Republicans have the stones to see this one through.