With the Miers nomination withdrawn the President decided to jump to the right and nominate Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. As we pointed out last week, Miers might have been the best deal pro-choice folks could get for the court. But now we have an experience judge with a history of being against a woman's right to decide for herself what she should do with her body. Alito would have even required a husband approval before a woman could get an abortion.

The President caved in to the right wing on this appointment and by doing that he lost more support from independent voters. His approval rating is now down to 37-39%. Here is what the Democratic Leadership Council says about the appointment.

"Bush Chooses To Divide

The president's announcement yesterday nominating Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court was a missed opportunity on several levels.

First, the hasty announcement, two working days after the withdrawal of Harriet Miers, made it impossible to even pretend that the White House was interested in broad, bipartisan consultation on this nomination. Indeed, it was telegraphed in every possible way as an act of surrender, repentance, and obeisance to the conservative activists, and the conservative "base" they claim to represent, who opposed Miers.

Second, and compounding the first problem, Judge Alito's nomination to Sandra Day O'Connor's key "swing seat" seems clearly designed to fundamentally and permanently reshape the Court, redeeming Bush's longstanding pledge to the Right to name justices in the mold of conservative judicial activists Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. To be sure, Alito is a competent and deeply experienced jurist, but one whose confirmation would have serious consequences on a whole host of constitutional issues that affect Americans in myriad ways.

Some of Judge Alito's opinions that have come to light so far, such as his attempt to limit the Family and Medical Leave Act, suggest a narrow, cramped view of the national government's role in addressing national problems. If hearings show that, like Justices Scalia and Thomas, Judge Alito is a conservative judicial activist, rather than an advocate of judicial restraint, Democrats will have legitimate reason to vote against him.

Finally, it's important that Congress take the time it needs to consider Judge Alito's record, and that the administration not use the Supreme Court battle as an excuse to keep ignoring the country's more immediate problems. The White House would like nothing more than a divisive ideological firefight that would distract attention from its ethical and policy failures.

Reasonable people from both parties should make clear that a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, at a time when that Court is so delicately balanced on a wide variety of critical constitutional issues, is not something that should be offered up as a reward to an ideological faction, or used to further polarize the Senate or the country.

As the Senate takes the time to carefully examine Judge Alito's record, Washington should not be distracted from addressing more urgent challenges, such as taking immediate steps to restore fiscal discipline, addressing the current energy crisis in a way that reduces America's dependence on foreign oil, and acting decisively to restore Americans' faith in their leaders after the Bush administration's obstruction of competence in its response to Katrina and its alleged obstruction of justice in the investigation of a White House cover up.

America faces an enormous array of challenges right now, from Iraq to the federal budget crisis to skyrocketing energy and health care costs to rampant corruption in Washington. Bush's apparent desire to put all that aside and spark an avoidable judicial battle is another example of his failure to redeem the pledge, made so often in his first campaign for the presidency, to serve as a "uniter, not a divider," and to usher in a "responsibility era."

Once again, this embattled president has decided to ignore an opportunity to unite rather than divide, and to distract from America's real problems rather than take them head on."

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