Alito has been on the bench for many years, with good credentials and considerable experience. No doubt Alito will produce a fight over ideology and interpretation, but it is a fight that Bush has calculated he can will. The fight and the victory gives him distraction from the other scandals and a successful conservative nomination. However, it will get interesting.

Beyond this brief introduction, I have little to say on the matter currently.

Slate has a good article on how its the batter we’ve been waiting for. And on how he tried to restrict Roe

The TImes has a look at his legal career.

WaPo on reactions.

The BBC has one of the better articles on the matter.

And a must read article at the economist:

In nominating Mr Alito so soon after the indictment was announced, the president is seeking to seize the headlines back from Mr Fitzgerald. He certainly needs to do something. Last week saw not only the Miers withdrawal and Mr Libby’s indictment, but the number of American troops killed in Iraq cross the 2,000 mark. Mr Bush’s poll ratings lurk at the lowest levels of his presidency. Conservatives, including his evangelical base, had begun to get uneasy even before the nomination of the not-right-enough Ms Miers.

Rather than reaching across the aisle with his latest Supreme Court pick, it seems that Mr Bush has now put repairing his conservative base first. If he can succeed in getting Mr Alito confirmed, he will have won his first big victory for some time. But the Democrats, sensing a weak administration, will do what they can to make the process as painful as possible.

Jeff Berman and Ed Kilgore discuss the implications of Alito’s nomination at TPMcafe.