Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. was approved by the Senate Judiciary Commitee and will now proceed to the full Senate for an up-or-down vote. The vote was along party lines, with the 10 Republicans on the committee voting for Alito and the 8 Democrats voting against.

But Alito presents many problems. One of them is his opinion of abortion, which has conveniently changed over the years. In 1985, he suggested that the Constitution doesn't protect a right to privacy. When asked the same question two weeks ago, he said that it definitely did. As a judge with the Third Circuit Court, Alito was the sole dissenter when the court struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring women to notify their husbands before having an abortion.

At Princeton University, Alito belonged to an organization that was opposed to letting more minorities and women into Princeton.

As a junior partner of the Reagan Justice Department, he helped craft the wrong-headed "unitary executive" interpretation of the Constitution, which says that the president is more powerful than the legislature or the judiciary.

When he first applied for the job on the Third Circuit Court, Alito was asked if he had any conflicts of interest in which he might have to recuse himself. He mentioned that some of his money was being managed by Vanguard, an investment/securities company, and that he would recuse himself if Vanguard were a party to any case heard by the Third Circuit. Vanguard was twice a party to cases heard by the Third Circuit and Alito didn't recuse himself in either case.

Bush is attempting to present Alito as "mainstream," though it is clear that his opinions are more radical than we are being led to believe. In a CNN/Gallup Poll conducted between Jan. 6 and Jan. 8, 53% of respondents identified themselves as "pro-choice." While not a huge majority, it's still a majority. (Although, if you're President Bush, it's a landslide!)