The surprising conservative backlash against Justice Alito
Samuel Alito Jr., associate justice of the US Supreme Court. | Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images Justice Samuel Alito’s new book, So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country, isn’t going to set the world on fire with its bold new ideas. It’s mostly a collection of Alito’s old speeches. But if the book treads familiar ground, the reception to it among writers who share Alito’s broad alignment with the political right is quite surprising. Three recent reviews of Alito’s new book — all by right-leaning authors — sound a lot like the longtime liberal criticisms of Alito. Key takeaways Justice Samuel Alito has a new book, where he calls himself an “originalist.” But several conservative writers disagree, pointing out that Alito is really just concerned with reaching results that he likes. Ultimately, originalists need Alito more than Alito needs them, because without Alito’s flexible approach to judging, this Court couldn’t consistently reach conservative results. All three of these reviews accuse Alito of engaging in results-oriented decision-making — meaning that he often seems to start with the outcome that he prefers, and then comes up with a rationale to justify that outcome. This, they argue, is at odds with Alito’s fairly recent...
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