When Harriet Miers’ nomination was first announced, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley called her an “amazingly bad choice.” This morning, he weighed in Samuel Alito:

JONATHAN TURLEY: He’s the top choice for particularly pro-life people. Sam Alito is viewed as someone who is likely to join the hard right in likely narrowing Roe and possibly voting to overturn Roe.

KATIE COURIC: So he is a strict constructionist in every since of the word? I know President Bush is looking for a conservative jurist, so he fits the bill in terms of someone who will interpret the Constitution literally and may disagree with the right to privacy, which is the foundation of Roe v. Wade?

TURLEY: Oh absolutely. There will be no one to the right of Sam Alito on this Court. This is a pretty hardcore fellow on abortion issues.

COURIC: Not even Antonin Scalia?

TURLEY: They’ll have to make a race to the right, but I think it will be by a nose, if at all. …

COURIC: And ideology trumped gender in this case, right?

TURLEY: I think so. I think the president wanted, first of all, to show he could pick someone who was clearly qualified and has the resume, but he also wanted to rally his base. He’s done both with Sam Alito. No one on the conservative base can be unhappy with Sam Alito. The question is whether they can weather this storm that will be coming, I think, and whether there will be a filibuster.