US: Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for a prolonged ideological battle over the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, which has left conservatives crowing and liberals warning that American civil rights are under threat.
Mr Alito received a boost yesterday when some moderate Republican senators expressed support and warned that they would resist any attempt by Democrats to block a vote by filibustering (talking indefinitely until the vote is called off). It takes 60 senators to end a filibuster, but Republicans only have 55.
Mr Alito's fate may lie in the hands of Republican members of the Gang of 14, seven moderate senators from each party who brokered a deal to avoid filibusters earlier this year. The Republican leadership had threatened to use its majority to change senate rules and abolish filibusters on judicial nominees.
Under the deal, the seven Democrats agreed to support a filibuster only in "extraordinary circumstances" and the Republicans promised to oppose a change in senate rules if a filibuster was reasonable.
California Democrat Barbara Boxer said Mr Alito's record on abortion rights, gun control and other issues meant her party should not rule out blocking a vote on his confirmation. "The filibuster's on the table," she said.
However Republican senator Mike DeWine, a member of the Gang of 14, said Mr Alito was within the judicial mainstream and warned Democrats he would side with Republican leaders to eliminate the judicial filibuster if the minority party used it against the judge.
"It's hard for me to envision that anyone would think about filibustering this nominee," he said.
Senate judiciary committee chair- man Arlen Specter, another moderate Republican, said after an hour-long talk with Mr Alito that he was satisfied that the nominee's record on abortion did not mean he would overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that guarantees abortion rights.
In 1991 Mr Alito wrote a dissenting opinion in support of a Pennsylvania law that would have required women to consult their husbands before having an abortion.
He has also opposed abortion restrictions, however, striking down a law that would have prohibited late-term abortions because it did not provide adequate safeguards for the mother's health.
Describing the first opinion as "very narrow", Mr Specter, who supports abortion rights, said Mr Alito believed the US constitution guaranteed a right to privacy and respected legal precedents at least as much as the new chief justice, John Roberts.
"I think he went farther than Roberts went when he said that. He used the term 'sliding scale' and said that when a case has been reaffirmed many times, it has extra - I think he said 'weight' - as a precedent, reaffirmed by different courts, nominees appointed by different presidents," he said.
Mr Specter said he was always concerned about the possibility of a filibuster but did not believe Mr Alito's nomination warranted such a step. "I think that Judge Alito's record hardly measures up to the standard that the Gang of 14 had of extraordinary circumstances. I think it hardly does that," he said.
Conservative groups which opposed President George W. Bush's previous nominee, Harriet Miers, have launched advertising campaigns in support of Mr Alito. James Dobson, founder of the far-right Christian group Focus on the Family, said that America was on "the fast-track to derailing Roe v Wade as the law of the land".