if you thought my last pick was crazy, just wait till you meet judge alito

Bush put smiles on the faces of prairie muffins and their promise keeper husbands everywhere this morning when he announced that he would be nominating Samuel Alito to fill the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court vacated by the conservative (but not fanatically so) Sandra Day O’Connor… Alito would, according to the folks at Think Progress, almost assuredly vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, allow race-based and disability-based discrimination, and strike down the Family Medical Leave Act. And, as if this weren’t enough, he’s also been know to accept unauthorized strip searches, so it would stand to reason that he’s not a big advocate for privacy rights… The folks at The Daily Kos introduced him this way:

The wingers hated Harriet Miers. It wasn’t that she was a walking question mark, but that they were being muzzled. They didn’t want any more stealth candidates that masked the conservative agenda. After winning the presidency and expanding their leads in both the Senate and the House, they were convinced of an ascendant conservative dogma. It was time for a coming out party, and both Roberts and Miers denied them that celebration.

Rove knew that the myth of conservative ascendancy was just that — a myth. An America that voted for Republicans out of fear of terrorists has little appetite for domestic conservative dogma. Bush’s numbers didn’t start coming down because of Iraq or Miers or Katrina. They came down during Bush’s “Let’s Destroy Social Security” road show. Fact is, conservatives are most effective when they mask their true intentions (“healthy forest initiative”, not the “let’s cut down trees initiative”).

But the Right refused to accept Bush’s winks and nods on Miers. They didn’t just want a conservative jurist. They wanted a showcase of conservatism they could shove down the throats of the likes of us liberals and the rest of America. They wanted one of those obnoxious touchdown dances.

Now we have a true-blood conservative on tap, and this now sets up the showdown of ideas that I think we’ve all craved. Thanks to Miers, ideology is now absolutely open to debate, and it’s now time for America to see what conservatism really looks like.

The Kos post goes say that the nomination is a “gift” to Democrats because Alito’s judicial philosophy perfectly illustrates the differences between the ideologies held by mainstream Americans and those on the extreme right when it comes to things like privacy, freedom of speech, the separation of church and state, the extent to which corporate power can be exerted, and the rights of workers and minorities. In other words, he’s not a stealth candidate. He’s running on his record, and his record is extreme. As a result, this is America’s opportunity to prove what it really cares about. A lot of us have, as the folks at Kos suggest, accepted the fact that we as a country let Bush take control out of fear, but if we allow Alito to take the bench it suggests to me that America has made a conscious decision to march lock step into the abyss. If America looks at his record and accepts it, there are no more excuses that can be made. We can’t just say, “It was fear.” This, we’ll have to admint, is what we’ve become.

For those who are interested, The People for the American Way press release on the Alito nomination can be found on-line, as well as their preliminary report on the Judge’s record. If you read them both over and agree that Alito is an extreme candidate who would dramatically shift the balance of the Court, then please consider writing to your elected officials, and signing this petition.