WELL, THAT’S MORE LIKE IT. In Judge Sam Alito, President Bush has chosen a more plausible High Court nominee. Make that a much more plausible nominee. His legal qualifications are exceptional, his character widely attested. And having spent 15 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, he has demonstrated an approach to judging that clearly identifies him as a judicial conservative.

Two points are worth noting on day one of this nomination. The first is Alito’s legal experience. His many years on the Third Circuit mean that he knows the labor of an appellate judge, which of course he’ll continue to be, only now at the highest level. But early in Alito’s career he had plenty of trial work–first as a young prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, and then, some years later, as the head of that office. He knows what it means to investigate a case, to go before a grand jury, to charge or not charge, to prosecute beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, there are the six very different years Alito spent in the Justice Department. From 1981 to 1985 he served in the Solicitor General’s office, where he worked on appeals to the Supreme Court, arguing a dozen cases. And from 1985 to 1987 he was the chief deputy in Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, which William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia headed during the Nixon and Ford presidencies, and which has the critical job of advising the president and the departments on legal issues. (An aside: I happened to work at main Justice from 1983 to 1988, and Alito’s reputation then was that of a bright, hard-working lawyer of even temper and reserve. He came into the department as a career employee, but his exemplary work impressed his superiors, who recommended him for his presidential appointments as U.S. Attorney and to the Third Circuit.)