Confirm Samuel Alito

Samuel Alito has served honorably as a federal appeals court judge for 15 years, earning the respect and accolades of his peers regardless of their ideological persuasion.

Inveterate Bush-bashers couldn't dig up one person in the legal profession - left, right or center - who has known or worked with Alito that had a harsh or critical word to say about him, either professionally or personally. The American Bar Association, which Democrats say is "the gold standard" in determining a judge's qualifications for the Supreme Court, has given him its highest rating.

Yet in his high court confirmation hearings this week, bloviating Senate Democrats asked Alito "When did you stop beating your wife?"-type questions, then excoriated him as a liar, a bigot, an extremist, a foe of equal rights and, of course, their old favorite, "outside the mainstream."

These are largely the same senators - as Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., kept pointing out - who found Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former general counsel for the loony-left ACLU, well within the mainstream when she was nominated to the high court by President Clinton in 1993.

The Democrats' lead attack dog was, of all people, the hero of Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy. In his younger years, this despicable Massachusetts creature got thrown out of Harvard for cheating on an exam, and drove a young woman into the Chappaquiddick pond and left her to drown while he saved his own skin.

The aging, morally challenged senator berated Alito for belonging to a Princeton organization more than 20 years ago that supported ROTC and opposed affirmative action - an organization that Alito barely remembered. But The New York Times, which broke the story, said there was no indication he ever contributed to or was active with the organization.

Yet Kennedy made it sound like Alito had belonged to the Ku Klux Klan - and still does. Then came reports Thursday that, when Kennedy was at Harvard, he belonged to Owl, a social club that excluded women. The senator's office indignantly responded that was different because "no one can question Sen. Kennedy's commitment to equality, justice and civil rights" - as if Alito's could be.

The hypocrisy and character assassination was so blatant that Sen. Graham apologized to Alito for it. This prompted the judge's wife to leave the chambers in tears. So much for liberal compassion.

Alito's welcome brand of judicial restraint is well within the conservative mainstream. He's the kind of justice President Bush promised to appoint in his two winning presidential campaigns. Unless Democrats really do come up with something - which so far they have not - then Alito should be confirmed to the high court. Heaven knows he's earned it.