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"On Justice Samuel Alito: Conservatives Can Have Empathy Too!"

The Wall Street Journal law blog acknowledges this Emily Bazelon piece.

This reminds me of what I wrote (in a NYT op-ed) when Bush first nominated Alito. Describing 2 cases in which he "displayed a sensitivity to the needs of adherents of minority religions" that was missing from the Supreme Court decision that, as a lower court judge, he had to apply, I went on to say:

Yes, chances are that a Justice Alito will please conservatives more often than liberals.... Still, [liberals] should give serious study to his record; they may discover that there are varieties of judicial conservatives, just as there are varieties of political conservatives, and that Samuel Alito is not Antonin Scalia.

Speaking of conservatives and empathy, Rush Limbaugh monologued about that last week:

By itself, what does sitting around caring about something accomplish? Now, if it motivates you to do something that's an entirely different thing. I find that most people, particularly people on the left, want plaudits, they want gold stars, they think of themselves as superior people just because they care....

I don't worry about things that I have no control over. I used to, big time. I can't tell you the shackles I had on myself worrying about all kinds of stuff. I was worrying about what might happen next year if I did this or did that. There was nothing more paralyzing in my life than to worry about stuff I had no control over. And in the process, I actually limited what I could control.

Full post as published by Althouse on March 21, 2011 (boomark / email).