If we can judge a nomination by the fear it brings out of the liberal pundits, then Samuel Alito is a wonderful candidate. Liberal author David Corn seems to petrified that Alito is the perfect conservative judge. He is concerned that with Alito, the democrats will be unable to sidetrack the issues:

There is no question that Alito is qualified, in that he has been an assistant solicitor general, a deputy assistant US attorney general, a US attorney and an appeals court judge. He is reputedly intelligent and scholarly. There will be no major disagreement over document releases; there are fifteen years of appeals court decisions for his friends and foes to scrutinize. That leaves the Democrats one avenue of attack: Alito would be bad for America.

Finally, it seems the Democrats will be forced to confront a conservative judge based on how he thinks and how he understands the Constitution, and not secondary issues like experience and a paper trail. (I think those issues are important, but still, they’re secondary.)

We’re starting to hear comments from Democrats like Pat Leahy:

This is a needlessly provocative nomination. Instead of uniting the country through his choice, the president has chosen to reward one faction of his party, at the risk of dividing the country. Judge Alito’s record on the bench demonstrates that he would go to great lengths to restrict the authority of Congress to enact legislation to protect civil rights and the rights of workers, consumers and women.

In other words, he’s afraid that Alito will read the Constitution without skipping the 10th amendment.

Here’s a quote from Eric Stern, Executive Director of the National Stonewall Democrats

President Bush has nominated a socially conservative judicial activist to appease the socially conservative political activists who control the Republican Party and this White House. Every Supreme Court nominee deserves a fair and thorough investigation into their judicial record. While judgements on this nomination should not be rushed, the giddy salivation of anti-gay activists over their preferred nominee should disturb fair-minded Americans.

Well… he’s not quite right. What makes me salivate is how much the liberals are jumping over each to complain about Bush’s choice. It’s a good sign that we should back Mr. Alito for the nomination, and pray that the Republicans will have the guts to back up this nomination.