The nomination battle over the next Supreme Court justice could come down to one word: "Scalito". That is the nickname that brands Judge Samuel Alito as a rightwinger in the mould of Justice Antonin Scalia, a fellow Italian-American and one of the current Supreme Court's most reliably conservative jurists. But does the nickname really capture the man?

Everyone agrees that Judge Alito, a 15-year veteran of a relatively liberal federal appeals court, is a solidly conservative jurist. But he is also widely respected - even among liberals - for his intellect, his commitment to the law, and his reluctance to overturn legal precedents. Legal experts who know the nominee well call him one of the sharpest legal minds in America - who could well prove less ideologically rigid than his near-namesake.