I like Alito

The more I read about Alito the more impressed I am with him. Highlights of a New York Times profile:

...Larry Lustberg, a former federal prosecutor who has known Judge Alito for 22 years, called him "totally capable, brilliant and nice."

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Judge Alito's jurisprudence has been methodical, cautious, respectful of precedent and solidly conservative, legal scholars said. In cases involving the great issues of the day -- abortion, the death penalty and the separation of church and state -- Judge Alito has typically taken the conservative side.

Yet he has not flaunted his political views inside or outside the courthouse. Friends say Judge Alito seems to have inherited a distaste for shows of ideology from his father, an Italian immigrant who became research director for the New Jersey Legislature and had to rigorously avoid partisanship.

Judge Alito won prestigious academic prizes while at Princeton and Yale Law School, where he stood out for his conservative views, which were in the minority, as well as for his civility in engaging ideological opponents.

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...Even in the Reagan Justice Department, where a palpable sense of conservative triumph was in the air, "I never got the sense that he thought about legal issues in an ideological way," said Mr. Manning, now a professor at Harvard Law School.

But Walter F. Murphy, an emeritus professor at Princeton who supervised Judge Alito's undergraduate thesis on the Italian Constitutional Court and has kept up with him in the years since, said his former student believed in ruling according to an "original understanding" of the Constitution.

The phrase is generally used to describe legal theorists, like Justice Antonin Scalia, who believe judges should try to figure out what the Constitution's drafters would have ruled in contemporary cases.

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..."He's got a powerful intellectual humility, is the way I'd put it," said Clark Lombardi, who clerked for Judge Alito in 1999 and 2000 on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the judge's current seat.

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...Judge Alito attended Princeton just as it was opening its doors to women, but classmates said he was not among those voicing opposition. Professor Murphy said he had predicted that the young Sam Alito would become a judge.

"He thought in judicial opinions even then," Professor Murphy said, adding that it was "not as clear then as now" that Judge Alito was a staunch conservative.

Mr. Dwyer said they both shunned the selective eating clubs that were a center of social life at Princeton. Instead, they joined Stevenson Hall, which was open to all students.

"Sam was never into cocktail parties or kissing up to important people," Mr. Dwyer said. "Sam was a regular guy. He made it on his smarts."

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...At Yale Law School, where he was in the class behind Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Alito was widely regarded as one of the smartest students, said Peter Goldberger, a classmate. Mr. Goldberger, who describes himself as a staunch liberal, said it was always enjoyable to get into a discussion with the young Mr. Alito.

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..."At Yale, he wasn't someone who spoke frequently in class," Mr. Goldberger said, "but when he did it was something you wished you had said. It's the same way on the bench. He's always asking the right question."

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...Charles J. Cooper, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, recruited him to become a deputy assistant attorney general.

Mr. Cooper, who has remained friendly with Mr. Alito, said: "The power of his intellect is the most striking thing about him. I'd imagine there are about six lawyers in the country who are John Roberts's equal, and Sam is one of them."

Sounds good to me.