PUBLIC MARKS with tags nominee & alito

He was going to be subjected to a filibuster. Now it appears that Supreme Court Justice Nominee Samuel J. Alito, Jr. will get an up-or-down vote.

With abortion and executive privilege to be two huge issues facing Samuel Alito during his confirmation hearing this week, the Supreme Court nominee said Monday that a good judge always keeps an open mind and that no person is above the law.

Most debate about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has focused on his propensity to vote to overrule Roe v. Wade and the similarity between him and conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. But despite the superficial parallels between the two conservative, Italian-American Catholic jurists, it is important to recognize that Alito has a substantial libertarian dimension to his jurisprudence as well as a conservative one. In several key fields of law, he is more likely than Scalia and other conservatives to be skeptical of assertions of government power. More important, there is much in his record that should appeal to libertarians and -- to a lesser extent -- even left-wing liberals.