Reject him

The hearings showed me all I needed to know: Alito is a weasel. Vote No.

At first the guy seemed like a wash -- obviously not what I would personally prefer, but not bad enough to warrant active opposition. But I must say, anyone whose conscience allows them to slip around their words to the extent that this guy has is not fit for anything, let alone the Supreme Court.

The past reference to being anti-abortion on his Reagan administration application was one thing. That could've easily been just him playing to his audience, and even if it wasn't, it's not like the Constitution is clear on that issue anyway -- that is, in comparison with what it says on holding US citizens w/o charges or intercepting their communications without a warrant. But when that kind of was-I-lying-then-or-am-I-lying-now question becomes the basis for a sizeable chunk of ones testimony, you just want to say "ENOUGH!".

A description of the last straw, via the San Francisco Chronicle. Long excerpt, but long for a reason:

A year after Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination was scuttled by the Senate, federal prosecutor Samuel Alito called Bork "one of the most outstanding nominees of the century.'' Eighteen years later, the comment must have seemed like a godsend to Democrats hoping to paint Alito as a reactionary unsuited for the high court.

But when a senator confronted him with his words, Alito said he had only been expressing admiration for Bork, and loyalty to the administration that appointed them both. He insisted he wasn't endorsing Bork's views on topics such as abortion, voting rights and presidential power....

Alito's 1985 application for a political job in Reagan's Justice Department took some [positions comparable to Bork] -- denying a right to abortion, disputing Supreme Court rulings on equal political districts, and endorsing the supremacy of the president and Congress over the courts. By the time of his 1988 interview with a reporter about Bork, Alito had left the administration to become the Reagan-appointed U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a position he held until his appeals court appointment in 1990.

Bork, Alito told his interviewer, was a superior candidate who had been unfairly rejected by the Senate. "He is a man of unequaled ability, understanding of constitutional history, someone who had thought deeply throughout his entire life about constitutional issues and about the Supreme Court and the role it ought to play in American society,'' Alito said.

Last Tuesday, Kohl reminded Alito of his words and asked whether his praise for Bork reflected compatibility with his opinions. "One of the ways you get at a person's judicial philosophy is to look at the people whom they admire,'' said the senator.

Alito demurred. "When I made that statement in 1988, I was an appointee in the Reagan administration, and Judge Bork had been a nominee of the administration, and I had been a supporter of the nomination, and I don't think the statement goes beyond that,'' he said. (emphasis mine)

Clearly if he agreed with Bork on the extent of executive power he'd earn himself a No vote right there. Yet, his conduct in the hearings was so slippery that frankly I could care less which Alito was telling the truth & which one was lying in hopes of being liked for it. Away with ye.