Confirmation Day

Not the one involving the Holy Spirit. The one involving unholy party-line partisan voting ;)

Judge, now Justice, Samuel Anthony Alito was confirmed by the US Senate today; he has been sworn in as the 110th Justice. Only one Republican, the ever-difficult Sen. Lincoln Chaffee, voted against him; four Democrats voted for him.

Both Justice Alito and Justice Roberts are rather young for Supreme Court justices; they are both in their early to mid-50s. You know that the law is an excellent choice of profession when it is pointed out that its best practitioners are considered "young" past middle age :)

I have a lot of optimism about the new Justice, although he still obviously has to prove his metttle. The trick will be to maintain - and if possible, improve - the number of conservatives on the high Court until a strong legal challenge to Roe v. Wade can work its way through the lower courts. Personally I think it would be effective for the test case to address the issue as a gross violation of civil rights. We shall see!