A qualified nominee

President Bush could have saved himself a lot of pain and trouble if he'd named Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor in the first place.

Alito, whatever else may be said about him, is certainly experienced and competent. As Bush said in announcing the nomination of the 55-year-old jurist, Alito "has more prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in 70 years." Indeed, the former U.S. attorney has spent the last 15 years on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Harriet Miers, who was Bush's first choice to succeed O'Connor, had no comparable experience. She is a good corporate lawyer who spent many years serving Bush, first in his capacity as Texas governor, then as president.

But she's never been a judge and her understanding of constitutional issues was unimpressive. So she gracefully withdrew. Her 15 minutes of fame proved to be an awful embarrassment both to her and her boss, yet this is what can happen with affirmative action appointments. Miers was picked because she was a woman and she was loyal. That qualifies her to be a White House attorney, which she is, but not a Supreme Court justice.

Alito, on the other hand, is very well-credentialed to be a high court justice. If there are no skeletons in his closet that would call into question his character or temperament, Alito will enjoy the enthusiastic backing of Bush's conservative base which, understandably, deserted the president on the Miers nomination.

But conservatives' support won't guarantee Alito's Senate confirmation. It will, however, guarantee a fight over judicial philosophy. And that could be a healthy debate for the country to have.

Left-wing special interest groups are already pressuring Democratic senators to mount a filibuster against the nominee, whose right-of-center judicial rulings they characterize as being too much like those of Antonin Scalia.

Scalia, to liberal Democrats, and even to some blue-state Republicans, is the devil incarnate, so it's very possible that if the minority's Senate leadership launches a filibuster against Alito, Republicans won't be able to round up the 60 votes needed to break it. If that happens, and let's hope it doesn't, Bush would have to go to pick No. 3.