Congrats to Ann Althouse for her piece in the New York Times this morning. Indeed, a double-congrats, since she isn’t behind The Wall.

The piece itself is on target, noting the oversimplification of equating Alito to Scalia: Separated at the Bench

Assuming that Judge Alito is confirmed, there will be time enough for the critics to mutter “Scalito” whenever he joins Justice Scalia in a decision they dislike. But for now, we should give careful consideration to his record. And what a thorough record it is: a decade and a half of judicial opinions that deserve close study, not facile comparison to the work of Justice Scalia.

She goes on to note some rulings in which Alito was invovled in which he sided with minority regilisou rights and goes on to note:

Yes, chances are that a Justice Alito will please conservatives more often than liberals. Doubtless, many liberals will anguish over Judge Alito’s opinion, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that would have upheld a law requiring that husbands be notified when their wives seek abortions. Still, they should give serious study to his record; they may discover that there are varieties of judicial conservatives, just as there are varieties of political conservatives, and that Samuel Alito is not Antonin Scalia.

More importantly, I would argue, she corretly notes:

Those Democrats who are already insisting that Judge Alito’s record on the bench makes him unacceptable should keep in mind that someday they, too, will have a president with a Supreme Court seat to fill, and it would serve the country well if that president wasn’t forced to choose only among candidates with no paper trail. To oppose Judge Alito because his record is conservative is to condemn us to a succession of bland nominees and to deprive future presidents of the opportunity to choose from the men and women who have dedicated long years to judicial work.

Exactly.

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