Alito's attitudes

IT'S NO surprise that President Bush resisted postponing the Senate confirmation hearings on Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court until January. The more Americans learn about Alito, the more worrisome his appointment becomes.

Last week a job application emerged that Alito had submitted to the Reagan Justice Department in 1985. In his own words, he declares himself opposed to racial quotas and states his view that the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. In addition to ''limited government, federalism, and free enterprise," Alito wrote, ''I personally believe very strongly in . . . the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values."

But it isn't necessary to read a political job application to be worried about Alito's atavistic views on ''values." His decisions and writings as a federal appeals court judge are troubling enough for the man who would replace the swing vote on the Supreme Court.

Alito shows an impatience with civil rights discrimination claims -- except when they refer to religious freedoms. In 2001 he denied the appeal of an African-American death row inmate for a new trial even though the defendant had been convicted by an all-white jury and potential jurors may have been challenged because of their race. Alito's logic was particularly dismissive. He quipped that the defendant's analysis of peremptory challenges to black jurors was akin to analyzing why a disproportionate number of American presidents have been left-handed. As one of his dissenting colleagues on the bench noted at the time, the Constitution does not bar discrimination on the basis of left-handedness.

When the issue is government restriction on religion, however, Alito is a card-carrying champion of free expression. In 1999 he wrote that two Muslim police officers should be able to wear traditional beards. He accused a public school in Pennsylvania that prevented a 6-year-old from reading the Bible aloud in class of ''viewpoint discrimination." He would almost certainly permit greater entanglement of church and state.

Alito says he was drawn to study law because of deep disagreements with the liberal Warren Court, including its decisions on criminal procedure, the establishment clause regarding state-endorsed religion, and proportional representation in the drawing of legislative and congressional districts. This is the principle often referred to as one-man, one-vote.

Republican supporters in Congress have said that any effort to block the Alito nomination through a Senate filibuster would be an outrage. Equally outrageous would be the country's return to the days before the Warren Court -- a darker, poorer time of liberty and justice for some.