Nice guys finish well

This is probably one of the more fair articles you will read written on the judicial background and character of Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito. My hat's off to the authors. It's a nice read about a man who appears to be precisely the sort of jurist a reasonable nut wants presiding. The salient bit:

These nuances are likely to get lost as the interest groups crank up a campaign to paint Alito as "Scalito." In an ad that began airing around the nation this weekend, People for the American Way calls on voters to take a stand against "giving the radical right wing the power to choose who sits on the Supreme Court." Ralph Neas, head of PFAW, led the Block Bork Coalition almost two decades ago, and he is a wily and effective agitator. He distributed press packets to 8,500 journalists before Bush formally announced the nomination, and he has anti-Alito petitions circulating in 25 states. Conservatives, too, are spending money on the coming media battle. Last week the conservative grass-roots organ-ization Progress for America bought $425,000 worth of TV ads praising Bush's choice for the court. "Alito is the darling of the radical right," says Neas. "He is precisely the person they wanted."

Actually, the radical right would have preferred someone more reliable, like appeals court Judges Michael Luttig and Edith Jones. When Supreme Court vacancies began opening last summer, Alito was the White House's second choice, after Roberts. Interviewed around the same time by President Bush, Roberts beat out Alito in July to fill the slot left open by O'Connor's retirement. Bush thought that Roberts's presentational skills were a little smoother than the geeky Alito's, says a White House aide who did not wish to be identified talking about internal deliberations. The president was more confident that Roberts would perform well at his confirmation hearings—and knew that Roberts, a judge for only two years, had a shorter paper trail to chew on than Alito, a judge for 15. But Bush liked Alito's "quiet confidence," says this aide.