Is Today Sam Alito's Day?

How often has your former employer been at the top of an extremely short list for a U.S. Supreme Court seat?

If the media are right (560,000 Googled Web pages; 1,650 current news links on Google; 4,660 blogs on Technorati at 6 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 30), one of the smartest and nicest persons you could ever meet may be nominated by President Bush by the time you read this. And if Sam Alito doesn't get the nod he's still one of the smartest and nicest persons you could ever meet.

I knew Sam's late father when I was a wire service N.J. Statehouse correspondent and Sam Sr. headed the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services. His skills and acumen created a state research office that was nonpareil and set an extremely high bar for similar non-partisan government offices.

Sam Jr. is as brilliant, steel-trap-minded (John Robertsian perhaps) as he is unassuming. I've worked over the years with many attorneys who wear top-tiered schooling and backgrounds on their sleeves. Sam, whose Princeton, Yale Law, U.S. Department of Justice, Solicitor General bona fides could excuse a little swagger, has none.

When it came to crime his tenure as U.S. Attorney included personally handling the first prosecution of an international terrorist in the United States. Yu Kikumura, a member of the Japanese Red Army, had an explosive device in the back seat of his car. Thanks to a prescient N.J. State Trooper, Kikumura never made it into lower Manhattan to detonate the device outside a U.S. military recruiting office.

As U.S. Attorney, Sam had an enviable ability to absorb facts in an instant, review the case about to become public with AUSAs and turn the results into a well-run, informative, news conference. I'm sure that same razor-sharp mind shows itself during oral arguments and in his decisions.

Lastly, re: "Scalito." I believe it was a long-ago NJ Law Journal article that quoted an unnamed attorney with using the "Scalito," moniker. Now it has a life of its own on the Internet thanks to the destruction of "practical obscurity," news aggregators like Lexis-Nexis, the ease with which reporters now quote others' copy, and our collective affinity for nicknames.

Is it being used as a perjorative political word (like "liberal" or "conservative") to induce those unfamiliar with him to infer instantly that he's combative and unsuited for the Supreme Court? If Sam's nominated, the Senate and the American people will get an opportunity to see that's he's another first-rate, high-intellect, judicial heavyweight in the Roberts tradition.

(For approximately three years I was Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s spokesman, during the decade I headed the District of New Jersey's Public Affairs Office. While I haven't seen him in a decade, time hasn't changed my respect and regard for him.)