THE WAR IS REALLY ON NOW!!!

Well, it didn't take President Bush long after the Hariett Miers debacle to make another pick for the United States Supreme Court.

He announced this morning the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, who currently serves on the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Third District. He's already being known as "Scalia-lite" for his staunch conservativism along the lines of Justice Antonin Scalia, but without the attitude, and conservatives are salivating over the pick. I was listening to our local right-wing radio mouthpiece after work, and she sounded as though she was about to climax at the thought of Alito on the high court.

Reason: Just check this out from a Baltimore Sun bio:

As a member of the circuit that comprises New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, Alito was the lone dissenter in two significant cases: one that overturned a Pennsylvania law requiring that a husband be notified before his wife gets an abortion, and another that did not put a higher burden of proof on people seeking to make sexual discrimination claims.

In the Pennsylvania case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 947 F.2d 682 (3d Cir. 1991), Alito wrote:

"[t]he Pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems--such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition--that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion."

The late Chief Justice Rehnquist expressed support for Alito's reasoning in his dissent from the 6-3 decision voiding the spousal notification requirment of the state law.

Alito also was part of a majority opinion in the case ACLU v. Schundler, 168 F.3d 92 (3d Cir. 1999), which ruled that the Establishment Clause was not violated by a holiday display at a city government building that included religious symbols (a creche and menorah) as well as secular symbols of the season and a banner upholding the city's dedication to diversity.

If Bush and the right wing were looking for an all out war, they'll get one with this nomination. What does I4J think about this? To use a World Wrestling Entertainment entry song lyric: "NO CHANCE...NO CHANCE IN HELL!" This pick has got to be slapped down NOW!