"Well qualified."

The ABA committee on the federal judiciary voted unanimously to give Samuel Alito its highest rating. Quite appropriately. I hope the hearings next week will be civil and that this clear signal from the ABA will create something of a sense of resignation about the outcome and allow the Senators to use the occasion fruitfully to debate about the legal issues that will face the Supreme Court in the coming years. Alito's opponents shouldn't think so much about defeating him. They should speak to us in a way that gives life to the alternate interpretations of constitutional law that they would like to see embodied in some future Supreme Court nominee.