Samuel Alito to join the Supremes?

The Rude Pundit takes issue with some Scalito hypocrisy:

Sammy Alito can write in his questionnaire for his circuit court nomination in 1990, stating plainly, clearly, that he'd "disqualify himself from any cases involving the Vanguard companies," which seemed reasonable since Alito had, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars invested with Vanguard funds. Then he can rule in favor of Vanguard in 2002, a case he got "due to a computer error" that should have warned him that Vanguard was involved. Sammy went ahead to rule on the case, even though Vanguard was the defendant, which means he either lied to the Senate or he didn't read the list of involved parties at the top of the brief, which says, "The Vanguard Group Inc., Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company, and Vanguard/Morgan Growth Fund Inc." But the White House says that if you dare question Sammy's ethics, you are just a tarnisher to the shiny essence of Alito, you tarnisher, you.

[..]

Let's get this straight: attend a conference connected with the case - disqualification. Have a financial stake in a company that's a defendant in a case you're judging - a-okay. Man, Alito is like duck-huntin' Antonin Scalia in his personal standard for "appearance of partiality."

Contradictions are part of life. We are never totally who we say we are, we are never totally who other people believe us to be. We are measured by our actions, and our motives are always open to questioning. The fundamentalist Christian who molests children. The megawealthy CEO who steals from the company. The righteous judge who lies.

This is a guy who is "on record in a memo as believing that to shoot an eighth grader, known not to be armed, who was trying to climb over a fence in escape, is a proper use of deadly force by a policeman" and who joined CAP, a Princeton alumni organization which was against, among other things, the admission of women and minorities to Princeton. That he will soon be on the Supreme Court for life doesn't make me feel comfortably optimistic.

As Jane says in Bush and Sammy: Made For Each Other:

Judge Alito has supported imperial powers for the presidency, not strong checks and balances; he approved the strip search of a 10-year-old girl but is not probing too deeply into what the executive branch is doing. That's W.'s philosophy, too - a pre-emptive right to secretly do everything from war to torture to snooping.

[...]

Judge Alito was evasive, disingenuous and deferential. He fits the Bush era like a baseball glove.