After a bruising shakedown amongst Conservatives (I like to think of it as shaking the tree and watching the nuts fall out), Bush has nominated someone that his base can rally behind, and in the process reinvigorate a Presidency that had gotten on the wrong track (my blog, my shameless plug).

The Washington Post reports:

President Bush nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court yesterday, rallying his estranged Republican base back to his side and triggering a torrent of liberal attacks that could foreshadow a bruising ideological showdown over the future of the judiciary.

In effect relaunching the nomination four days after Harriet Miers withdrew under fire, Bush selected a long-standing New Jersey judge with an extensive record of conservative rulings on abortion, federalism, discrimination and religion in public spaces. If confirmed to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the swing vote in recent years, Alito seems likely to shift the court to the right.

Now before Libs and those who are scared of the “extreme right wing” wet their pants too badly, all in the world this means is that the court will be more likely to defer to original intent — in other words, they’ll interpret it the way authors intended for it to be interpreted. Oh, I see. OK, go ahead and wet your pants, that has got to be scary for you!

But does this mean that the evil-of-all-evils, prayer in schools, might return? I can only hope. You see, the First Amendment says (in part):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

So as long as Congress doesn’t make a law requiring prayer in schools, it seems as if local school boards can follow their own mores and do whatever they wish (probably as long as they allow an opt-out for those who do not wish to participate).

Note that this depends on local decisions — meaning that the ACLU is going to have one heckuva time litigating that many lawsuits.

And abortion? As any idiot can see (well, except for the idiots on the Supreme Court at the time of Roe v. Wade, I guess), the Constitution doesn’t mention abortion at all. And I have never heard one serious historian put forth the idea that the framers of our Constitution might actually be for the idea were they alive today. So if Roe v. Wade is overturned, then what? The issue returns to the “several states” to legislate however they see fit. Again, 50 states, 50 venues for the ACLU to spread its resources among. At least they’ll be gaining name recogntion.

And Judicial activism seems to be the bottom line here. Liberals ideas are generally so stupid, so out of the mainstream (despite what they’d have you believe about Conservatives), that they simply can’t win legislatively — they have to win through a stacked court. If they can’t win through the courts, then their ideas are relegated to the trash heap of history, along with the other garbage.

After Alito’s nomination, the Left wasted no time implementing their world-famous Chicken Little imitation, and announcing that the sky was falling:

“After insisting that Harriet Miers shouldn’t even get a hearing because she couldn’t prove she was extreme enough, the far right has now forced the president to choose a nominee that they think has views as extreme as their own,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Hey, Senator? What’s extreme about adjucating a case by seeing what the Constitution actually says about a subject rather than injecting one’s own personal beliefs into the mix? Therein lies the problem with Liberals! That’s it exactly! They just don’t get the fact that the Constitution when read correctly actually supports the beliefs of Conservatives, because Conservatives don’t believe in interpreting the Constitution! It’s not that we’re forcing our beliefs on you, it’s that to be a Conservative means being in agreement with the Constitution!

Harry Reid joined in the chorus, too:

Reid, who had encouraged Bush to pick Miers, said the Senate would have to investigate whether Alito “is too radical for the American people” and complained of another white male nominee. “President Bush would leave the Supreme Court looking less like America and more like an old boys club,” Reid said.

<rant>
Note to Reid: Hey, butthead! You’re a Senator, and Senators don’t get to nominate Supreme Court Justices! And another thing, this word “radical”… in the words of Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” A radical is someone who picks and chooses what they want the Constitution to mean, not someone who reads it and applies it as written. Jackass.
</rant>

It wasn’t just Kennedy and Reid, either:

…Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the liberal group People for the American Way rushed out statements blasting the nomination even before Bush announced it at 8 a.m. By the day’s end, much of the organized left had joined the chorus, including the AFL-CIO, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Alliance for Justice, MoveOn.org and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

Finally, the Post points out:

The same president who touted Miers a month ago as a nominee with real-world experience far removed from “the judicial monastery” yesterday emphasized Alito’s lengthy history on the bench, noting that he “has more prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in more than 70 years.” Bush even chose to introduce Alito in the main hall of the White House, rather than in the Oval Office, where he announced Miers’s nomination.

Presidential aides acknowledged the course change. “We tend to learn our lessons,” said one senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could be more candid. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that “the culture of today’s confirmation process makes it very difficult for someone who comes from outside the court” to be appointed.

Alito is sometimes called “Scalia Lite” or “Scalito” because of his supposed similarity to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. If so, he’s a Conservative dream-come-true and deserves the full support of any American who believes in the three separate and distinct branches of government, and wants to lay judicial activism to rest.

TD