Editorial: Bush hands out Halloween ‘treat’

Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005 | 8:50 a.m.

President Bush didn't waste any time genuflecting to religious and social conservatives who had fought his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. On Monday, just a few days after Miers asked Bush to withdraw her nomination, the president nominated Judge Samuel Alito of the federal appeals court to the Supreme Court.

The conservative activists who were prepared to defeat Miers' nomination because they believed she wouldn't vote to overturn the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade signaled that they wouldn't have a problem with Bush's latest nominee. Alito has ruled in favor of restricting abortion rights, much more than the woman he would replace, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. For instance, as a federal judge, Alito has sided in favor of legal provisions that would require a woman to notify her spouse if she were seeking an abortion.

"Now, with Judge Alito, the battle is where it belongs," Gary Bauer, a religious conservative activist, told the Associated Press. "It's a battle against the president's avowed political enemies." It is shameful that the president has allowed himself to be cowed into doing the bidding of extremist elements within the Republican Party, by casting Miers aside and sending up a new nominee who is certain to be divisive.

Nominating a Supreme Court justice shouldn't be about scoring partisan political points or exacting revenge against perceived enemies -- as Bauer would prefer. It should be about finding the right individual for this lifetime appointment. One of the reasons why Miers' opponents on the right were so frightened by the prospect of her confirmation is that she might have been in the mold of O'Connor -- whose judicial philosophy was firmly rooted in mainstream thought.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sounded his skepticism of Alito. "The Senate needs to find out if the man replacing Miers is too radical for the American people," Reid said.

Alito's nomination certainly is deserving of the Senate taking its time to review his record and his judicial philosophy, particularly because he would replace O'Connor, who frequently was the swing vote on many of the critical issues facing our nation -- including religious freedom, abortion, affirmative action and the death penalty.