The Alito that MoveOn didn't mention

This darned judge:

• Wrote an opinion prohibiting the use of any state-owned facilities for abortions, possibly right down to the public water supply - and in the process looked forward to the day when the Supreme Court could "reexamine Roe." 
• Voted to uphold burdensome abortion requirements like a 24-hour waiting period and a rule that second-trimester abortions had to be done in hospitals - and wrote that Roe's central holding should be eviscerated.
• Voted to bar the federal government from banning guns near schools, and from protecting women against sexual assault.
• Wrote that it should be unconstitutional for the federal government to provide minimum wage and overtime protections to city workers.
• Wrote an opinion allowing inflammatory evidence into death penalty sentencing hearings that was not relevant to the defendant's blameworthiness - leading dissenting colleagues to decry the "radical" result as the exercise of "power, not reason."

Gosh, that Alito guy sounds terrible!  So we have to keep this extreme, radical, activist, ideologue of a judge off the Supreme Court, right?

Well, no, actually ... those are all opinions written or joined by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is now touted by some Dems as the model of what a Supreme Court Justice should be.

What's my point?  My point is that any appellate judge with years of service will have a long paper trail that is relatively easy to manipulate.  That process of course has already begun for Samuel Alito.  Some of the information on those "quick facts about Alito" lists is accurate, some is misleading, and some is flat-out wrong (the most obvious example, on this list, is that Alito "would overrule Roe v. Wade," a statement that finds exactly zero support in the case to which the list cites, and that is, as far as I know, sheer speculation).

So, as a public service, I am pleased to present some of Judge Alito's decisions that MoveOn, People for the American Way, NARAL, and the rest of the gang probably didn't mention when they asked for your donation to support their anti-Alito campaign:

• Less than two months ago, Alito held a public housing authority in contempt of court because the authority was overcharging low-income tenants on their utility bills, and awarded sanctions to the tenants.  Alito's opinion reversed the lower court, which had sided with the authority.  Read the case.
• A woman named Pauline Thomas had a variety of physical ailments that prevented her from holding most jobs.  She had found work as an elevator operator until her position was eliminated, whereupon she filed for disability benefits.  The Social Security Administration and the District Court rejected her claim, on the ground that she could still do her job - even though that job no longer existed in the national economy.  Alito reversed, holding that if, because of your disability, there's only one job you can do, and that job no longer exists, then you are entitled to disability benefits.  Read the case.  (The Supreme Court later reversed Alito's decision, in an opinion by Justice Scalia.)
• In a first-degree murder case, the defendant had evidence that some of the jurors were racially biased, but the trial court refused to hear it.  Alito reversed the lower courts, ruling that they had clearly violated the defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial, and ordered the lower courts to hold a hearing on his claim.  Read the case.
• A high school student had for years suffered harassment from his peers in the form of being called "gay," "queer," "faggot," etc.  The student became seriously depressed and unable to function in school.  Alito held that this harassment was serious enough, and the school district's failure to deal with it was significant enough, that the district had to pay for the student to go to school in a neighboring district - reversing the District Court which had sided with the school district and denied the parents' claim.  Read the case.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea - this list doesn't paint quite the same picture as those other lists.  Now, does this prove that Alito is in fact a closet super-liberal who will unexpectedly break to the left if he is confirmed?  Of course not - we can most likely expect Alito to be a pretty reliable conservative on the Supreme Court (though I have no doubt that he, like every other Justice in the history of the Supreme Court, will from time to time surprise and disappoint those who backed his nomination).  All that this - or any of the other "lists" floating around - can prove is that Alito has been a judge for a long time; that he has decided a lot of tough cases that could have gone either way; and that you should be very careful about reading too much into selective "case summaries" proffered by interest groups with an agenda.

Bottom line: make up your own mind.  Do some research on non-partisan sites (SCOTUSblog is always a good place to start, and any Alito opinion published in 1996 or later should be available at Findlaw).  And wait for the confirmation hearings, where you can bet that Alito will be questioned for hours about many of the opinions that the lefties are worried about - that, after all, is what the hearings are for.