Thursday, November 03, 2005

Alito: My Kind of Conservative

This morning, Scott at Powerline called attention to an excellent article in the Los Angeles Times relating the uniformly favorable comments by Judge Alito's former clerks and classmates. While it is not unusual for lawclerks to support their former bosses, what is highlighted in this article is the favorable comments of the liberal lawclerks who worked for Judge Alito. Also featured are classmates, some of whom have gone on to be prominent lawyers with a liberal bent.

And one of those classmate comments was particularly revealing to me:

"Ideology aside, I think he is a terrific guy, a terrific choice," said [Joel] Friedman, a Yale classmate of Alito's. "He is not Harriet Miers; he has unimpeachable credentials. He may disagree with me on many legal issues — I am a Democrat; I didn't vote for Bush. I would not prefer any of the people Bush has appointed up until now.

"The question is, is this guy [Alito] going to be motivated by the end and find a means to get to the end, or is he going to reach an end through thoughtful analysis of all relevant factors? In my judgment, Sam will be the latter."


There it is. Short, sweet and to the point. My definition of a conservative judge. Conservative in the process of judging. Thoughtfully analyze all relevant factors of a case: Law, facts, application of law to facts, and then and only then decide the outcome. A classic definition of judging. Classically conservative.

What's not to like about that?

3 comments:

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Judging a case based solely on its merits? What a concept!

Syl said...

"Too many people overly focus on the result of a particular Supreme Court decision."

or even a dissenting opinion.

The decisions, if done right, may be the opposite of what the judge believes should be the right outcome in a certain case.

I love it when a judge upholds something and says this is obviously stupid but is what the law says. If you don't like the decision, tell it to the legislature.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if they will use the nuclear option?