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Tavis: Nan Aron is the founder and president of Alliance for Justice, a group that recently has focused its attention on opposing many of President Bush's judicial nominees, including today's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court of Judge Samuel Alito. In 1987, Alliance for Justice helped defeat the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork. Nan Aron joins us tonight from Washington. Nan, nice to have you on the program.

Nan Aron: Thank you. It's a treat to be here.

Tavis: Glad to have you here. So, the alliance officially opposes already the nomination of Judge Alito. How can you move so quickly?

Aron: Well, we have known for a long time that Samuel Alito was on George Bush's short list to the Supreme Court. And when it became clear last week that Harriet Miers was not going to make it, there were reports, and in fact the Bush administration was looking again at its short list and Samuel Alito's name just came to the forefront.

Tavis: All right, tell me why - I'll ask this in two parts. I'll get more about why you're opposed to it. But I suspect by asking the first question, I'll get the answer to the latter. How did he get, why is he on, why was he on President Bush's short list?

Aron: Oh, he's been a very, very popular lawyer, and now judge among radical right groups and lawyers in this country. He went on the bench, he was appointed by George Bush's father, George Bush Senior. Been on the third circuit court of appeals now for 15 years. And during that time on the federal bench on the third circuit, he has issued scores of rulings that would really turn back the clock on so many of the rights and protections that we Americans have come to cherish.

Civil rights, women's rights, reproductive rights. Fourth amendment search and seizure cases, he has been a voice and sometimes the lone voice on a 13-person circuit court that has voted against civil and women's rights. So he's well known to the White House and more importantly, he's well known to the radical right.

Tavis: Tell me how frightened, from your perspective, women ought to be of Judge Alito, it is not lost to me of course that today, over the last 24 hours or so, we have seen lying in repose the first woman ever to be so honored to lie in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, that of course of the late great Rosa Parks. On a day that a woman for the first time ever lies in the Capitol Rotunda, and so honored, we have a judge being nominated that you believe women ought to be concerned about. Tell me why?

Aron: Well I should start with, by reiterating something that Senator Harry Reid said early today. That disappointment looks - makes the court look much less like America, and much more like an all boy's club. It is indeed disheartening that for the third time, President Bush bypassed the selection of a Hispanic nominee, which would have been historic, as well as bypassed the appointment of a woman to fill the shoes in the seat of Sandra Day O'Connor.

It is indeed a very grim development in this country that President Bush couldn't have found someone. But after all, we had been calling on the President to name an individual, a woman, a person of color, who would accept the progress made in the United States on behalf of women and minorities. And of course, President Bush wasn't willing to do that, and wasn't even able to do that, given the fact that just last week he had caved to the pressures of the right wing. I would say it's not just women in this country who have much to fear from Samuel Alito, but I'd say all Americans.

It's not just issues of privacy that are of grave, grave concern, but I think Americans ought to be concerned across a whole range of fronts. Just a few years ago, he joined in a very decisive opinion denying standing to an environmental group who had challenged the government's implementation of the Clean Water Act and found 150 violations of the Clean Water Act. And yet he joined in opinion saying that that plaintiff group had no standing.

Civil rights cases, he has gone out of his way to make it much more difficult for plaintiffs to bring Title Seven cases, promotion cases, hiring cases on behalf of women and African Americans who were seeking to be hired or promoted to better paying jobs. So I think it's a range of issues, not just - privacy and women's rights.

Tavis: To your point though of women's rights and certainly civil rights, I'm sure you saw the news earlier today, Judge Alito did make - one of his first appearances. He did accompany - accompanied I should say by Senator Bill Frist, went to pay his respects to Mrs. Parks in the Capitol Rotunda. A lot of people had commentary about what that meant, if it meant anything. Some people think it means something, some black folk I've talked to, they were offended by it, thought there were - politics being played with it. Did you see that story? What did you make of it?

Aron: Well, I think symbolically, I think it certainly carries some flavor, but I think the fact of the matter is, this is not a national debate about symbols. This is a national debate about the future of our judiciary, and the future of our country. And the fact of the matter is, Judge Alito's record ought to raise serious, grave concern among people of color in this country. Not just on Title Seven issues but the death penalty. Cast a vote in a - case involving a claim based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

A man challenging his incarceration and death penalty based on the fact that his own lawyer didn't look into the fact that he had a history of mental retardation and family abuse. And here was Alito ready to throw out this case, and it's interesting because the Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Souter, but more importantly, it was Sandra Day O'Connor who cast the decisive vote overruling Judge Alito's denial of giving this man a - new trial.

Tavis: Isn't - that irony?

Aron: Isn't that irony on this day, yes. Absolutely.

Tavis: Let me ask you though what you make of the fact, if anything, that Democrats had to know this, unless Democrats in the United States Senate, and especially on the Judiciary Committee, are stuck on stupid, which I assume they are not, they're smart enough to get elected by their respective states. You have to be stuck on stupid not to know that if Harriet Miers did not make it through, the President most likely was going to put up one who was more conservative than Harriet Miers.

If she didn't make it through, there was going to be a paper trail. There was going to be a track record. There was going to be a judge nominated, a real judge, if Miers didn't make it through. So the Democrats had to see this coming. That said, strategically, tell me what sense it made - for them not to be, for lack of a better phrase, more accommodating to get Miers through if that was the best they were gonna be able to do. So did the Democrats not ask for Alito? Didn't they ask for this?

Aron: No, they didn't. Not at all.

Tavis: All right, tell me why.

Aron: I mean, this was a nominee who was brought down, clearly not by the Democrats, we're talking about Harriet Miers now, but by radical right wing groups. The Democrats, I think had raised some very significant issues. But had very much argued that Harriet Miers had a right to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and answer questions. The Democrats also said that - the White House, as well as Harriet Miers, needed to disclose documents. Talking about describing some of the work and the issues she had handled during her years in the White House.

But you know, Democrats - I think sat by and were helpless, given the onslaught of opposition and attacks on Harriet Miers raised by the right. It's interesting to me, I've been involved in judicial selection now for over 25 years, and it's interesting to me to see radical right groups complain about the treatment that Robert Bork got in 1987, and yet Robert Bork was afforded a full hearing. He was given the opportunity to fully answer questions. And to talk about, at length, his views on a range of issues.

The radical right in this country denied Harriet Miers that same historic opportunity to appear before the committee. So I think the Democrats clearly are not the ones to blame. I think they knew - they knew throughout that process that most likely the next one would be worse. But the fact of the matter was, they wanted to give her an opportunity to appear and describe what she thought about some of the issues of the day.

Tavis: Let me ask you in about 20 seconds right quick, like or loathe his politics, he has been a judge for 15 years. Republicans run the United States Senate. Harriet Miers didn't get through. The conservative base of the President loves this guy. Isn't it a foregone conclusion already he's going to get this nomination, he's gonna get through?

Aron: Oh, no. Oh, no. We are going to reach out to all corners of this country to let people know who Judge Alito is, and we are calling upon Democrats as well as Republicans to stand up, stand together, and defeat him.

Tavis: Nan Aron, nice to have you on. President and founder of the Alliance for Justice. Glad to have you here.

Aron: Thanks so much.

Tavis: Up next, a look at the global crisis of HIV and AIDS. Stay with us.