Trick and Treat

Sammy Alito is the whole bag of goodies.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Monday, Oct. 31, 2005, at 2:26 PM ET

Well, boo.

It's magic. Almost as if the whole Harriet Miers debacle never happened, President Bush has rapidly retreated from his judicial preferences of last month. The urgency of filling Sandra Day O'Connor's seat with another woman has been erased; the importance of balancing the too-scholarly court with a practicing attorney has evaporated; and the need to put an outsider onto the court is long forgotten. Suddenly George Bush's vision for what the high court most needs maps perfectly with that of the movement conservatives who sank the Miers nomination. Never has a pander felt so good.