So who is this Alito guy?

You go away for a few days and you come home to find that there's a whole new Supreme Court nominee creating a sudden demand for immediate cash contributions to derail his nomination.

I don't want to sound hypocritical here — I fully support the concept of "no religious test for office" — but I must admit I was startled to learn that Samuel Alito would make the Supreme Court majority Catholic. Catholics are just under a quarter of the population of the United States, and yet we are poised to see 55% of the Court in Catholic hands. Odder still is that Protestants and Jews would be tied at two seats each.

Of course, my in-box is already bursting with appeals for funding to stop this threat to abortion rights, to individual citizens resisting giant corporations, to people minding their own business in their own homes, and undoubtedly also to those cute fuzzy KITTENS! (Ooh, kittens!)

I'm reserving judgment until I see some of the nomination hearings. With 15 years on the federal bench, Alito has left an ample record to examine and question. We also have to ask what nominee the naysayers would have Bush put forward; he ain't gonna nominate someone like Rose Bird! I will say this, though: even though Bush promised repeatedly to nominate a Justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia, if Samuel Alito is that man, he will have my unflinching opposition.