In choosing Samuel A. Alito Jr. to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, President Bush seems to have appeased those hard-line conservatives within his political base who vigorously protested Harriet Miers, the White House counsel and personal friend who withdrew her nomination for the same seat last week. But the new nomination is generating similar questions of qualifications, competence and ideology, only from the other side. Some Democrats are raising red flags - and even the possibility of a filibuster - because they wonder whether Judge Alito is so far to the right that he's not qualified to sit on the High Court. It's a critical question because Sandra Day O'Connor, whose seat he would fill, has been a moderate conservative and a pivotal swing vote. With the court's future hanging in the balance, getting to know Judge Alito is a top priority for the Senate and the nation over the next several weeks.
He certainly comes with an impressive rM-isumM-i: a former assistant U.S. attorney, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, deputy assistant U.S. attorney general and U.S. attorney before serving for the last 15 years as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Philadelphia. That means he has a known judicial record and paper trail, which is being mined by supporters and detractors.