Explaining the Solicitor General's office, defending Alito.

Lawprof Charles Fried has an op-ed on Samuel Alito in today's NYT, looking at the way Alito's opponents have used memoranda he wrote as a junior lawyer in the office of the Solicitor General. Fried, who was Solicitor General from 1985 to 1989, writes:

These were not the writings of a political operative seeking to make trouble or advance an agenda. The solicitor general takes a case to the Supreme Court only when some other part of the government - perhaps a division of the Department of Justice or another agency - recommends it.

As a junior staff member, Alito received assignments, including one dealing with abortion and another with wiretapping:

What is remarkable in both cases is that Judge Alito recommended against taking the position that more senior, politically appointed officials were urging the solicitor general to take before the court.

I'm not going to excerpt from the rest of the piece, because it's so pithy that you ought to read every word. Fried makes his point with the great clarity you'd expect from a Solicitor General: if you understand the context of the cases and the way the Solicitor General's office works, you can see that Alito is "a careful lawyer with the professionalism to give legally sound but unwelcome advice" and "a person who can tell the difference between the law and his own political predilections."