Samuel Alito was not George W. Bush’s first choice for the Supreme Court seat created by the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, a pro-choice justice. White House Counsel Harriet Miers was.

Miers had a thin resume for the Supreme Court. She hadn’t written much of consequence; she was not a graduate of an Ivy League law school, like most of the justices; she had never been a judge. The opposition to Miers came from the right wing of the Republican party, which had a pro-life litmus test for Supreme Court justices. They considered her an unreliable choice to help overturn Roe v. Wade.

In the face of formidable opposition, Miers asked that her name be withdrawn, and Bush turned to Samuel Alito, a conservative Catholic who would satisfy anyone’s definition of a sure vote to overrule Roe.

Alito faced a tough time getting confirmed. He was an obscure judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Democrats sensed what his views were on abortion, and were only mollified when Judge Edward Becker, a colleague of Alito on the Third Circuit, testified on his behalf before the Judiciary Committee that Alito was not a zealot, but a reasonable judge who would follow the law. The Republican Senate confirmed Alito by a vote of 58-42.

Becker was wrong about Alito. He was a partisan, a radical and an extremist conservative.

Alito cannot be accused of the even-handed application of the law. He has been described as the court’s “most reliable partisan.” The evidence concerns his rulings on the doctrine of standing — whether a party is entitled to bring their claims to........

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