Judge Alito Faces Grilling, Schumer Says

WASHINGTON - As Judge Samuel Alito stands poised to become the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, and as the Bush administration tours the country to highlight positive economic numbers, New York's Senator Schumer launched a two-pronged attack on the president yesterday - comparing Judge Alito to failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, and lambasting the president for an alleged indifference to the economic woes of middle-class Americans.

In a speech delivered yesterday on Capitol Hill, Mr. Schumer, a Democrat and a vocal member of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, suggested the committee's grilling of Judge Alito during the nominee's confirmation hearings next week will be more intense than the September hearings of Chief Justice Roberts.

While Mr. Schumer bemoaned then-Judge Roberts's lack of a judicial record and demanded that the White House release internal documents to further clarify the nominee's legal opinions, the senator said yesterday that Judge Alito's 15-year judicial record and the very existence of a paper trail clearly expressing his legal opinions means that "Judge Alito has more to answer for" than Chief Justice Roberts did.

During a question session after the speech, however, Mr. Schumer said he has not yet decided how he will vote on the nominee. The senator also denied that his vote against Chief Justice Roberts, who Mr. Schumer said yesterday has left a "better impression" as a nominee than Judge Alito, has caused observers to write off Mr. Schumer as a definite "no" vote, thus lessening his influence over the Alito hearings.

As Mr. Schumer assailed President Bush's vision for the judiciary, he also decried the administration's economic results, saying during a conference call with reporters yesterday afternoon that "life is getting tougher for the average American" and that the Bush administration is "out of touch" with America's middle class.

Mr. Schumer, however, said that while the "macro numbers look good" for the Bush economy, they indicate only that the richest Americans are growing more wealthy, and that the unemployment statistics and other indicators of an improved economy do not represent the fortunes of average Americans.

When asked by the Sun whether he would be similarly critical of a Democrat boasting the same economic numbers as President Bush, Mr. Schumer replied: "Democratic economic growth is different than Republican economic growth."