I have no doubt that George W. Bush is trying to stack the court with fundamentalist conservatives who will shred the Constitution for the next twenty or so years. Harriet Miers was, oddly enough, a fundamentalist "Christian" who was rejected by the Right as too moderate. Or something. Now we have Judge Samuel Alito, whose record is slowly coming to light.

"It has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan's administration and to help advance legal positions which I personally believe in very strongly," wrote Alito, then an assistant U.S. solicitor general.

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," Alito added.

I guess that pretty much clears up how he feels about mechanisms to enhance racial equality and abortion. Something tells me he hasn't changed since his years as a Reagan-era government attorney. These are positions which he "personally believe[s] in very strongly." And it is no great leap of deductive reasonling to think that if he does not believe the Constitution protects the reproductive rights of a woman that he will do overmuch to respect Roe v. Wade.

This guy is not who we need on the Supreme Court. The question is: Does the Bush administration have the influence to find and successfully nominate a moderate judge to the Supreme Court, or is this the shape of things to come? Because if we become a nation ruled by the Radical Right, then are doomed.